Wedding Putting together an album - where to start?

[Rhea]

I''ve been married for over two and half years and don''t have an album yet. Our photographers gave us the images on CD and we''ve printed a hand full. I think it''s time to put together an album, but I''m not sure where to start.

We have over 1000 images from two weddings and an engagement session. Should we put all three events together in one album? How many photographs is reasonable for an album and how to do you narrow them down?

And the actual practicalities, what do you look for in an album? I have one someone gave us a while back, a blank album we both like. I think it needs photo corners. Is that okay or is there a better type of album to buy?

The thought of going through hundreds of photos, narrowing it down, cropping them, printing them, arranging them, and putting them in the album is overwhelming. By our 5th anniversary sounds reasonable, right?

 

[ladyciel]

If you''d like to avoid the manual labor part, what about one of the online photo book makers, like blurb.com? We used them for our guestbook, which had a mix of our engagement photos and baby pictures, and it came out wonderfully. The software is easy to use, and their prices are really affordable for the quality of the product.

As for the photos, I would take a mindset of divide and conquer. Take all your ceremony photos, and pick your favorites. Do the same for the cake cutting, the family portraits, the different poses in your engagement pics, etc. As for what number is reasonable, I think that''s completely up to you. We plan to make a blurb album and will make it as big as we need to get all of our favorite photos in. Will it take a while to make it and look through it? Of course - but we couldn''t stand to leave out a lot of the photos. We love every single one way too much for that.

 

[neatfreak]

We uploaded to kodak gallery and used their software to make a flush album. We love it and because I am not good with scrapbooking and such it was really nice to be able to adjust picture sizes and layout and see it before I printed it!

 

[marchswallowbird]

Addy, you want to tell a story with your photos. Start at the beginning, and choose the best photos that create the story of your wedding, without words (you can add words later, but in the photo-choosing stage, pretend you have to tell the story ONLY with images). Don''t duplicate photos; choose the best photo from each sequence of shots that your photographer took, and use those (okay, if you have two GREAT photos and just absolutely cannot choose, use both). Make the photos big. Don''t cram too many small photos onto one page just because you want to include more photos. Use fewer photos, and run them as large as possible, even taking up the whole page with just one photo (assuming you''re doing an online photo book). Vary the sizes of your photos and their placements on the pages to create more visual interest. Group them, so that photos on the same page, or even on facing pages, go together (shots from getting ready, shots of the ceremony, shots with the family, shots of dancing, shots of the cake cutting -- oh, this is one time you should use several shots, cuz people like to see how you did the cake cutting and whether you "smashed.") Never forget; you''re telling a story, not just plopping photos into an album. Always ask yourself, what photo tells this part of the story best? Be sure to include ALL parts of your wedding story, from start to finish.

I would do a separate engagement album.

It will be fabulous when you''re done. I promise.

 

[Rhea]

Date: 10/28/2008 6:46:05 PM
Author: ladyciel
If you''d like to avoid the manual labor part, what about one of the online photo book makers, like blurb.com? We used them for our guestbook, which had a mix of our engagement photos and baby pictures, and it came out wonderfully. The software is easy to use, and their prices are really affordable for the quality of the product.


As for the photos, I would take a mindset of divide and conquer. Take all your ceremony photos, and pick your favorites. Do the same for the cake cutting, the family portraits, the different poses in your engagement pics, etc. As for what number is reasonable, I think that''s completely up to you. We plan to make a blurb album and will make it as big as we need to get all of our favorite photos in. Will it take a while to make it and look through it? Of course - but we couldn''t stand to leave out a lot of the photos. We love every single one way too much for that.

The online photo album is like what people call a coffee table book, right? I think I want a traditional album, the big leather ones with photo on each page.

That''s a good way, the divid and conquer thing. We didn''t do a cake cutting, flower toss, first dance or anything traditional like that, but we can probably still think of things in order of when they happened and go through it that way.

 

[Rhea]

Date: 10/28/2008 6:52:15 PM
Author: neatfreak
We uploaded to kodak gallery and used their software to make a flush album. We love it and because I am not good with scrapbooking and such it was really nice to be able to adjust picture sizes and layout and see it before I printed it!

I don''t want a scrapbook just the more traditional, whatever that means, lay out for a photo album. Like what my grandparent''s looked like. I''m planning on using photoshop to crop and centre anything. When you talk about your album you mean like the coffee table books I hear about? I think I want a very simple lay-out. I don''t like more than two photos per page. But maybe that''s not possible if I want 50 some odd photos or more!

 

[Rhea]

Date: 10/29/2008 2:00:11 AM
Author: marchswallowbird
Addy, you want to tell a story with your photos. Start at the beginning, and choose the best photos that create the story of your wedding, without words (you can add words later, but in the photo-choosing stage, pretend you have to tell the story ONLY with images). Don''t duplicate photos; choose the best photo from each sequence of shots that your photographer took, and use those (okay, if you have two GREAT photos and just absolutely cannot choose, use both). Make the photos big. Don''t cram too many small photos onto one page just because you want to include more photos. Use fewer photos, and run them as large as possible, even taking up the whole page with just one photo (assuming you''re doing an online photo book). Vary the sizes of your photos and their placements on the pages to create more visual interest. Group them, so that photos on the same page, or even on facing pages, go together (shots from getting ready, shots of the ceremony, shots with the family, shots of dancing, shots of the cake cutting -- oh, this is one time you should use several shots, cuz people like to see how you did the cake cutting and whether you ''smashed.'') Never forget; you''re telling a story, not just plopping photos into an album. Always ask yourself, what photo tells this part of the story best? Be sure to include ALL parts of your wedding story, from start to finish.



I would do a separate engagement album.


It will be fabulous when you''re done. I promise.

I didn''t get a chance to finish replying yesterday. I think I can tell a story, but all the parts that you and others seem to have mentioned aren''t there. We had two weddings and I think I might keep the weddings seperate because that would make more sense. But then I get lost. We didn''t have a photographer for getting ready, we didn''t have dancing, no cake cutting (or even cake). Is it possible to tell a story when you''re missing most of those pieces?

For the legal wedding, we met the photographer in a pub, then went to the park for a bit, then a civil ceremony (under 20 minutes!), and that was the wedding. We went out to eat afterward in a local resturant but the photographer wasn''t with us then. No toasts or anything and my flowers were from a street vendor.

There was a bit more to the other wedding because we had family travel in and needed it to take some time, but that photographer wasn''t near as good so we don''t have as many photos. For that one there was no ceremony, no getting ready photos, but there were 3 cakes (no cake cutting), and a first dance.

Is it possible to tell a story when both weddings were, not casual exactly, but cut down to the bare bones? There''s a series of photos from our legal wedding that I love. It''s 5 photos of our kiss and then a big hug. Since there were so few "events" could I use those? Or is that too many of one thing?

I''m sorry this is so long, I''m just not good at stuff like this and our wedding wasn''t big or fancy at all but it might be nice to eventually put together an album.