Weddingbee

A while back, I mentioned converting your wedding blog into a book. I have been working on mine since September and it has certainly been a labor of love. Using Blurb BookSmart here, you can turn your blog into a bookstore quality book. Compatible with Blogger, Livejournal, TypePad and WordPress. All you have to do is sign into your blog account through BookSmart and it will automatically upload your blog into the software. From there, you can remove certain blog entries and move the pictures around. It also works with Flickr, Picassa and SmugMug!

Here’s a sneak peak at what it looks like.

Since I don’t use any of the blog sites I listed above, I had to manually copy and paste each blog entry into a “text layout” and drag the photos from my computer or flickr account. It was a lot of work, but it worked out better for me since I had to move the photos around anyway. I included just about everything from the time we got engaged to the night before the wedding. Mrs. Onion asked if I would be including post wedding blog entries into this book. Due to the size of the book right now, I think I may have to make a separate wedding Recap book.

There are however some disadvantages.

• If your photos are hosted through a different site such as Shutterfly and were never uploaded to Livejournal, then the photos won’t automatically upload to BookSmart.
• Also, Blurb requires high res photos and photos taken off the internet or hosted on sites like Shutterfly will not pass at all for high quality printing.
• Blurb has recently upgraded BookSmart to 1.9.2 which is supposed to be faster. If you have lots of high res photos and many pages (100+), the software begins to slow down which is really frustrating. Every click of the mouse takes several seconds to process.

However, the staff at Blurb has been really helpful if you have any questions, you can ask on their forums and a fellow Blurbarian will answer.

• You can back up a copy of your file onto an external hard drive. BookSmart saves for you so you don’t have to. If there is an error and the program shuts down on you, your work is still saved.
• It’s compatible with Flickr which has been a great convenience. Like Mrs. Lemon, you can ask your wedding guests to upload their photos to Flickr and you can make a book out of them easily.
• To edit your book for grammar, spelling and alignment of photos before publishing it, you can created a low res pdf. Using the PDF, you can print it out and flip through a draft copy of your book before publishing.

I am just adding a few finishing touches and my book should be completed soon. I still have to print a draft copy to edit and choose a book cover, which I may need some help on deciding.

Do you plan on making a wedding planning book or scrapbook?

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