We all know that I love lists, so it probably comes as no surprise that I have a long list of things to-do before baby girl arrives. The tasks range from the mundane (organizing the filing cabinet) to the major (you know... finding a house.) A few weeks ago, I decided to knock one of the larger projects off that list: our wedding album.
Chris and I have been married for nearly three years and up until now, I had yet to do anything with our photos... they're not even up on Facebook! Honestly, I was a little overwhelmed. Our photographer (the talented and wonderful
Amanda Fales Photography) had given us over 4,000 images of the big day, and sorting through them was a major task in itself (a task that I had started two years ago, in hopes of giving the album to Chris as a first anniversary present... ahem.)
Once we had all the photos narrowed down to our favorites, I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to design the actual book. In the end, I decided to keep things simple and let the photos shine. Every now and then, I used typography as a design element and pulled special lyrics from our wedding soundtrack (that's right, we had a soundtrack) for a little something extra. I'm so happy with how it turned out!
For printing, I decided to go with a tried and true favorite,
Blurb. The whole process was super simple: I used one of their templates for InDesign, saved my final file as a print-quality PDF, and uploaded it to their website. Three weeks later, I receive the book in the mail, easy peasy. I highly recommend Blurb if you're ever in the market for a photo book (plus they have coupon deals running all the time -- I used a 25% off coupon!) I also upgraded to the ImageWrap hardcover and the premium matte paper. I've never used their basic stock paper so I can't compare the quality, but I think the matte paper looks great. It has a nice weight and a subtle shine without being too glossy.
Now that I have the actual album in hand (all 134 pages!) I can't believe it took me so long to finish it. Having a hard copy of the photos is so much nicer than the digital files. It's such a great keepsake of our wedding that we'll cherish for years to come, and I know our daughter (and future babies) will love seeing her parents on their wedding day.
