Friday, January 29, 2010

Wedding Album

The place we got married at offered many different wedding packages. You could pick one and build on it or take from it as you wanted. My parents decided to go with the "sweet and simple" package and add things to it that we wanted. The "sweet and simple" package included two photographers all day on our wedding day. It did not include a wedding album. We figured, ok, no big deal, we will get one later.



I had a few bridezilla moments, but I definitely don't think they could have made a 30 min show about me being a bridezilla. I had a few things that I cared about and a lot of stuff I didn't. It is interesting to go through the wedding planning processes because you often don't know until you are going through it what you will become a bridezilla over.


I am a scrapbooker and have friends who made their wedding albums on kodakgallery.com. I also have friends who have professional wedding albums. Having a professional wedding album was one of the things I ended up caring about and wanting.


So, my dad contacted the photographer about an album. He said to contact the place we got married at. The told my dad we could get a $1,000 album or a couple hundred dollar, smaller, engagement type album.


Uh, thanks? Because we were given the rights to the photos we were lucky enough to be able to take the pictures elsewhere. I asked a photography friend how much she would do the album for. She said $500 ish. It still felt too steep. So I posted on facebook that I was struggling with this cost. My friend told me about blurb.com. It is a website you can make your own photo book at. I was exploring the site and thinking it was really cool, when I found blurbnation. It connects you with people who have already made books and make them for clients. I thought, "Someone to do it for me? How much will it cost?"


I found lifesong and emailed them for a quote. Andrew sent me an email back with several different book options and prices. They were about $150-$200. I told him I liked his prices and what was the next step. I had to upload photos to his website. It was easy. Chosing the photos to put in the book can be difficult. I had already made my mom a scrapbook so I knew which photos I liked. I also had to give him a $100 deposit.


Once the pics were uploaded and the deposit sent he had a book made for me. The photographers at our wedding didn't put the pics in choronological order and the order got messed up when I uploaded them so Andrew had them in that order. I told him what order I wanted things in and what changes I wanted made and he had another book made the next day. We went through 4 drafts I think and I felt like such a crazy person but he didn't mind at all. He wanted me to be happy.


The only surprise I had was when he sent me the final invoice. It was $26 for shipping. So if you decide to use him, keep that in mind.


The book arrived quickly and was packaged with care. I absolutley LOVE! it! It is exactly what it looked like online. Worth every penny!

15 comments:

  1. What a beautiful album! I love it!

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  2. that loks beautiful...thats something I bet allot of people dont realize, photo books....who knew? ;)

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  3. It is absolutely beautiful! I definitely think wedding photography is overpriced... especially when you consider that after a few years (or kids, whichever comes first I guess!) it ceases to be that "coffee table centerpiece" you envisioned it would.

    Speaking of, I wonder where our wedding album (circa $1500) is...

    ~Elizabeth
    Confessions From A Working Mom

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  4. Pretty! And fantastic use of FB to get things on the cheaper! I will keep that in mind for sure!

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  5. Nice! I love getting great deals on things that are outrageously priced!

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  6. What a great idea! It looks wonderful.

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  7. This is very helpful.
    I own all the rights to my photos taken too. We did not get an album- more because our photographer DOES not do albums! He told us that in the start- but he said he would give us disks with every picture he took. Seemed fine to us. Well...Um, I made 3 photo books Because I thought I was a scrapbooker. Oh lord. Long, tedious and they look like a 10 year old made them. I made my mom a small book on snapfish. Almost 3 years after I got married and I am wanting a REAL album. SO...this sounds great to me. I kind of want someone else to pick the photos too- i mean there are hundreds. haha. Maybe that is me being VERY lazy! :)

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  8. ps. YOUR album looks beautiful! :)

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  9. That looks lovely! I'm glad you were able to get such a good deal on it. I had no idea that wedding albums could cost $1500.

    Have a great weekend!

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  10. Your album looks great! We have been married a year and a half and I still have to do our album. I've been dragging my feet. I'll have to look into that now!

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  11. I did my wedding album through Blurb and I love it. 125 pages for $75. Beats paying $1000 to my photographer!

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  12. Awwwwwwww so cute!!! And $1000???? People are ca-ray-ZEE

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  13. what a lovely book!! and reasonably priced, good work:)

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