Wedding Blog
Sure, it might collect a little dust over the years. Yes, it might get relegated to the back of the closet for a while. And you might not pull it out every time a new guest comes over. Still. Get an album. Here’s why I think you should…
Mr. Tiramisu and I spent a night a couple of weeks ago having dinner with his grandparents. His grandmother had asked us to bring over our wedding album, which we had just received from our photographer, Samantha Warren. We had so much fun reliving the day as his grandparents flipped through the pages, commenting on all of the beautiful pictures. We laughed as his grandfather commented that Mr. Tiramisu looked like he had just won a prize as he was walking me back down the aisle, and he said he remembered feeling that way when he married Mr. T’s grandmother, more than fifty years ago.
That’s when we decided to pull out their wedding album. The white silk cover was stained, and a little discolored, but that didn’t take away from the pictures on the inside. Mr. Tiramisu’s grandmother actually giggled as she looked at pictures of herself getting ready. Her husband visibly swelled with pride looking at her bridal portraits. We all laughed at the style of the tuxedos, and at the guests showing off their best dance moves.
Bringing over our wedding album resulted in almost two hours of us pouring over pictures together. We pulled from their closet the wedding albums of Mr. Tiramisu’s parents, his aunts, and his uncles. It brought back memories of looking through my own parents’ and grandparents’ albums as well.
I am so thrilled that we have a beautiful keepsake that we can enjoy for years and years. Here are a few more shots of the gorgeous album that our photographer put together for us:
Sam chose for us one of her “Signature Albums”. We were able to choose the colors of the leather to match our wedding colors.
The pages are thick and designed to be durable- awesome for something that we will treasure for decades!
With the album open, the pages span two feet! This image takes up that entire space:
Thank you, Sam!
While it was important to us to have a keepsake album, we also wanted to gift smaller albums to our parents and grandparents. Enter Mpix!
For Christmas presents this year we made photo books at Mpix.com. In the past we have made photobooks with both Blurb and My Publisher, and are most impressed by the quality of the Mpix books. Of course all of these options pale in comparison to the beautiful album that our photographer made for us, but the albums we purchased are lovely, with clear photos printed very true to color at a much lower price.
I used the Mpix software to layout 30 pages of photos to fit in a 11″ x 8″ Custom Hard Cover photo album. I mostly used the pre-built layout options that they give you, although you can create your own layouts and upload them if you prefer. We changed the family pictures in each book to be specific to the family we were giving the album to, but the rest of the pictures were the same in each.
Here are some shots of the finished product:
What do you have planned for your photographs post-wedding?
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Share this post: Get An Album
I’m SO excited for our pro album — the pages are exactly like yours (same quality, size, etc.), and the only difference is it will have a photo cover. Thanks for sharing (and getting me even more psyched for our wedding pictures!). 
I hadn’t thought about it very much yet, but you definitely just sold me on for sure doing an album.
Yours is gorgeous!
i love your wedding album — especially the cover. i agree with you on getting an album made. it’s nice to share and relive all the wonderful memories from time to time!
What would you say is the biggest difference between the pro album and one we can do ourselves online? I imagine I gotta be able to upload our images to the same sites the photographers use and cut out the middle man cost. I mean we’re willing to spend the time to do and feel that we are artisitic enough to do that also.
Thoughts?
I’m making a flushmount online for us on mpix. Our photographer is pretty pricey with those, and there is NO way we could afford it. For parents/grandparents, I’m sure we are going to do photobooks.
Mrs. T, I’m inspired! I have been putting this off for so long… the thought of dropping a grand on a book was just kind of making me nauseous. I thought about designing my own but havent had the time to sit down and do so! I think I’ll contact my photog today Thanks for the post!
I haven’t thought of the album yet, but this gives me reason to! These are really amazing. Thanks for sharing the different types and options!! Very helpful!
We did the exact same thing! Ordered a pro album from our photog (though we’re a tad bit tardy… it’s being made as we speak)! Also, like you, we ordered albums from Mpix for xmas gifts for our parents. And… we also ordered small paperback albums from MyPublisher for relatives.
Your pro album looks amazing… I am so anxious to see ours now!
Tottttallly just emailed my photog You’re the best Mrs T!
Such a beautiful book! I have one album from our photographer but it is the very traditional and classic style with the individual photos in an album. I would really like to put together another one to include all photos that we had taken at that time, not just the pro ones like you’ve shown.
I loved your wedding, so pretty! Plus we’re date twins! 07/19/08!
I love your album! We also choose to order an album that is similar to yours from our photographer. I know I’d never do it the old fashion way, and really wanted one! It was pricey, but so worth it.
Was the mpix software easy to use? I want to do something similar for our parents for Christmas and haven’t found a software program I like very much.
I want not just one, but several albums. I want one serious, arty one. I want one funny moments one that I’ll laugh at every time. And I want a get-all-the-family-in-one-book one. Sigh.
The difference b/w a pro album and a consumer album is that pros actually have to pay for the software to design an album, from the album company. I like finao.com, and I think their site is cool too. Miller’s is good but their covers alone cost $100+!!
Another reason to get an album . . .
My brother and sister-law got married 5 years ago and now have a 2 year old. Their son looks through their photo album the same way he looks through his picture books. He even points to them and says “Mama” “Pop-pop” or who ever is in the picture. It’s the cutest thing!
Wow I haven’t heard of Mpix before…I know I’ll be doing photo albums for parent gifts, but I’m still not sure which website I’ll use…your pro album looks so fantastic!! And I was looking at your pics going: “I remember those and that and that…” like I was there or something LOL!
@Gerbera: You really just can’t compare the two in terms of quality. While the smaller books are nice, they look like photos printed out on the page (which they are), where the professional book is actually a book of photographs. I know that some of the best companies that produce this sort of thing will only sell to professional photographers… if you could find one that would sell to you, that would be great, but any that I looked into required that you be a professional. We figured that we would splurge on the one book that would become a family keepsake, and were happy to support our photographer by ordering from her since we so loved her work! When we booked her we actually chose a package that included an album so it was an easy and early decision for us.
@Mrs. Penguin: YAY! You will love it!
@Miss Crab Cake: Yes! Super easy. You download the software and work on it offline, so it’s really fast and also simple to use. The uploading process takes a few minutes, but you do it at the end and all at once so you can just walk away from your computer and let it do its thing.
I was just questioning this last night and have now sent in the deposit for my photog and we’re getting an album! Thanks for the rec’s on making your own, too, I know I will be doing some of that.
We are definitely doing an album! Either through blurb or mypublisher! I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve looked through my parent’s wedding album and see their wedding day. It is priceless! One day, when I have a daughter I’m sure she’ll look through our wedding album and look back to how were!
That book looks so great!! IF we have money at the end of all this- I could totally see splurging on a book. I love the story of you with the Grandparents!
I totally agree!!!! Getting a really nice album was #1 next to getting really great pictures. What’s the point in taking all those pics if you’re not going to have it all made up nicely in an album?? It’s just a nice way to re-tell the story one day…or just to re-live the day over the years!!
Definitely good words of advice! And MyPublisher is awesome! We recently got our engagement pictures done and I’m making books for our moms as Mother’s Day presents
I’m so in love with these beautiful, beautiful flush pro-albums, but the price deters me so much. But my photographer showed me one when I met with her - and oh, they are just so, so lovely!
I was extremely disappointed with the blurb album I made for my parents. The photos were overly saturate and the quality was just not good in general. how does mpix compare? I would be willing to try it if you think it’s better. I would definitely not use blurb again.
ps. your professional album is gorgeous!
We’re getting the exact same type of wedding album! And I looove the one you made.
I love the album! It’s gorgeous!
What size is it?
We are definitely doing books… especially after this post. How much fun to look trough those old albums
I’m so glad you hear that you’ve been most impressed with Mpix over Blurb and MyPublisher… I have never used any, and I’ve been so torn over which to use. I want to put time into creating nice layouts and I’d hate to put in the time and not be happy with the result! Was the Mpix pricing comparable to Blurb/MyPublisher, if you don’t mind my asking?
I wish we had had the $$$ for an album from our photographers, but it was just too much… I’m kind of excited to make albums myself, though, because I can do whatever I want and add as many pages/photos as I want!
I checked out finao.com, and it is an awesome site but you must be a professional photog. I was wondering if anyone knew of a site that could make an album where one single image could pour over onto two pages? (In other words, the album spine actually goes through the middle of the page). That seems to be one of the coolest attributes of a professional album.
Love your books! I am planning on using MPix for our engagement pics and probably for our wedding albums as well. We won’t be able to afford to buy from our photog, I can’t wait to put our albums together!
@labride: We were disappointed with the colors in our blurb album as well (we ordered ours last summer to commemorate a family vacation). The colors are MUCH more true in the Mpix album… I think it is a step above Blurb/My Publisher in quality. The pages feel nicer too!
@purpleluver: Aw thanks! Our professional album is a 12″ by 12″ square, and our Mpix album is 11″x8″.
@Mrs. Cupcake: I think Mpix is just a little more expensive than the others, but not a ton- these albums were around $50 with shipping.
@AshCat: The two page spread is an awesome feature! With the album we have, there is barely even a line down the middle!
I’ve been debating about doing this for the past few weeks. And now I definitely know which direction I’m leaning 
We’re also making photobooks for the parents and were thinking of going with myPublisher, but now you got me thinking of Mpix.
Your book, and photos are awesome~
Do you know what vendor your photographer used for the book she made? I’d like to mention it to my photographer (they don’t typically make albums like that, and I’d like one)
OOOH! I love looking at people’s wedding albums. Photography is priority one for me! Your album is gorge!
@LatteLove: I emailed my photographer about this, and here’s what she has to say, which I think is a really cool way to look at it:
“Someone actually emailed me about this yesterday and I am debating what to tell them. I keep the album companies I work with close to the vest, for a variety of reasons. One is that album companies I work with only work with professional photographers and so sharing their names doesn’t really benefit a bride.
The album thing is funny… when I was starting out in the business, I couldn’t understand what all the fuss about albums was. Last January, I went to a big industry trade show to look over albums, books, etc. After holding the albums in my hands, I finally understood. It took weeks of research, connecting with a ton of other photographers and talking to clients before finally arriving at which companies I decided to use for my albums and books.
As you likely learned when designing books for your parents, it’s quite a complex process. To take 1200 or so images, and then pick from them to best tell the story in a timeless way using best design principles is fairly difficult and I think a lot of people don’t realize that, and don’t understand why these albums are so valuable. And of course the quality of a professional album vs. a consumer book (there really aren’t many consumer albums) out there is unmatched. I think anyone who holds a pro album next to a consumer book and feels the quality comparison (the thickness of the pages alone) will see the difference.
I design all my albums free hand (instead of using a template program) and this process really is a true extension of my story telling beyond the story I write on the camera on the wedding day. And because of this, it isn’t really X company’s album, it’s a Samantha Warren Weddings Album. As a longtime reporter, I can make the analogy that shooting a wedding and then not giving the client an album or book is like going out and doing all these interviews for a story, but never writing it. As a reporter, I wouldn’t do the legwork and then just give my notes to someone who doesn’t even know how to write and ask them to write the story. The album is the presentation of the story, and for many people, forms the way they remember this most important day.”
So gorgeous! We splurged on our photographer for many reasons, but a main reason in getting a bigger package was for their albums. I’m so excited and love the new designs. My parents album is priceless, but I’m super excited that in 50 years our pictures are the page, not just taped in like the older albums.
I’ve never tried Mpix, but I have to say MyPublisher is AWESOME . I would stay away from Blurb–the pictures came out really oddly.
I LOVE your album! I hope to have soemthing similar. for the parents, we may go with mpix, so thanks for sharing!
I planned on making an album. my photographer is giving us all of the pictures from the wedding so I can do what I want. I’m going to make my own instead of paying hundreds of dollars for one (as nice as they are).
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Mrs. Tiramisu, Annapolis, MD/Maine
Age and Occupation: 26, Eye Doctor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Project Manager/Real Estate Management grad student
Engagement Date: May 15, 2007
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 4, 2008
Venue: Oceanfront lawn and tent
About Me: I was born and raised in Maine, now living in Annapolis, Maryland and planning a hometown wedding from afar. I’m nothing short of obsessed with wedding planning, and am loving the do-it-yourself madness that has now taken over my life! As for me, I’m a craft-loving, martini-drinking, girly-girl who loves traveling, photography, my schnauzer, and above all, spending time with Mr. Tiramisu.
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