Weddingbee Blog

Many moons ago, I promised an update on when/if I ever put a wedding album together. Well, I did it and I love the result!

Our wedding photos were shot in film by the wonderful Leah McCormick. While Leah gave me DVDs with the digital images, they weren’t the best resolution and the black & white images just didn’t scan right. I had always assumed that I’d need to get a “traditional” album. My sister’s photographer had gone through Cypress and the album was stunning, but it cost more than $5,000 and is so, so delicate. It seemed like a great idea 4 years ago after getting married, but not so much after 2 kids with sticky fingers and expenses up the…

For 4 years—during which many family, birthday party, and vacation albums were put together—I ignored the issue. Then, this past spring, a work colleague shamed me.

She had gotten married two years earlier and was shocked that she still hadn’t done her album. I ’fessed up that I hadn’t put mine together, either. She was going to order a gorgeous album from Good Stock and I was positive that I would go that route as well. My problem was that I had to narrow 1000 + photos to around 150. I spent a whole weekend getting down to 300, but then was stumped. I didn’t know which photos to scrap without knowing the layout. So, I figured I’d “play around” on an album site, assuming I wouldn’t get great results, but could order it as a back-up album that the kids could look through and get dirty.

I picked Photobook America because I wasn’t really looking for a “wrap around photo” type of cover and read that Photobook had really good quality paper. Well, two weeks of nightly work later, I was in awe of the  results. Really. It was incredible. And assuming the quality of the album was going to be good, I didn’t see the need to get an additional “professional” album.

I had a few more hoops … I had to get a lot of negatives re-scanned — all of the black and whites I used and, since I went with a large 12 x 12 design, some of the large format color photos. I had the photos scanned at Alkit Manhattan with fantastic, albeit pricey, results. I also had a handful of non-professional photos that I wanted to put into the album. I had long lost the negatives, but order them on a DVD from Shutterfly. After easily swapping in the high res/re-scanned photos and going through countless pdf proofs and moving photos smidgens to the left or right, I took the leap of faith and ordered my album. It arrived a few weeks ago and Wow wow wow. I’m really thrilled with everything — the cover, the quality of paper, and (ahem) the professional looking layout;)

In terms of price, all-in-all I’ve spent around $1000. The scanning was very pricey, especially the large format b&w prints (total ~$500). Photobook is almost always running a special—I ordered with a 45% discount, and a 92 page 12×12 “pro-series” album with a “sleeve” wound up being $230 with shipping. I actually ordered a second one with just a few photos of my friends switched out for my mother.

These aren’t the best photos, but they’ll give you an idea…

Have you considered putting together your own album rather than going through your photographer? What reputable companies have you heard of that you’re considering?