Hi everyone. Please keep asking interesting questions today, because Friday's are SOOOO boring at work! LOL
Anyhow, onto my (not so) interesting question.
I am embarking on my endeavor to create our wedding photo album. For our wedding, my cousin (who is not a photographer, just a lover of nice pictures with a good eye) used my DSLR and took our wedding photos. Risky, I know, since you only get one chance to get the shots. But I have to tell ya, she did a fantastic, FANTASTIC job. Seriously, I don't know how she did it. I have seen and used professional photographers for other things, and I truly don't think I could be more pleased with all the photos she took, both posed and candid shots. That said, since I do not have a professional photographer creating a wedding album for me, I am making my own photo book on Shutterfly. Now, I've done LOTS of photo editing (I dabble in photography myself), and I have made lots of photo collages, gifts, etc. But never a photo book. Now, I'm not intimidated by the process of creating the book itself, but I am OVERWHELMED with choosing which photos should be in the book, as well as how to arrange the book, and that is what I'm looking for suggestions for.
I haven't looked at a wedding album in forever, so I don't know how they are typically arranged... chronologically? Like, from the first picture taken, to the last? With the posed shots mixed right in with all the candids? Or do they group things, like all the posed shots, followed by all the getting ready shots, followed by the processional shots, then the ceremony, then the recessional, etc., etc. ???
I know I basically have to weed through the nearly 500 photos to decide what shots make the cut, but I need ideas for how to best arrange them in the book.
My preliminary idea is to kind of intermix the posed shots with the all the candids, keeping the candids in basic order of how the day went, to kind of keep the book flowing and making sense... for example:
Page 1 - 8x10 of the 2 of us
Page 2 - Candids of my dad and I waiting to walk down the aisle, and of the processional
Page 3 - meeting at the altar pics
Page 4 - another 8x10 of the 2 of us
Page 5 - ceremony candids
Page 6 - another 8x10 of the 2 of us
See? Like putting all the nice posed shots of us in large prints throughout the candids from the day, which would be smaller...
Interested in your thoughts and ideas... I can't wait to do this book, but it is overwhelming to start...
Thanks everyone!!
Louise, in Shutterfly you can... I've toyed with Picaboo, but never actually ordered from it. I may check it out before I print this book, but I have it done in Shutterfly, so I don't think I'll do it over, unless Picaboo is so much more fabulous. It took like 4 hours just to upload my photos! But at least now that I have the book done, I would only load the photos I know I plan to use, so it wouldn't be soooo bad!
I like how you have suggested it. B/c to me it you would have the "awww, look how beautiful" which leads right into "HAHAHAHAHA... loook at that!" and then back to "awwww".
Sometimes if it is all serious it looses attention and people just start flipping the pages just to get through it, but if you have fun ones mixed in it hopefully it keep the attention going.
Wish we could all see the pics, lol.... They sound fantastic!
We had a professional photographer, but the album design was all me, they just did the prints and put it together. I went with chronological, to me it made the most sense. We chose an option that allowed us to use a photo on the front of the album, so I chose the close-up of our rings for that. Then I started with pictures of the church, me arriving, the dress/shoes/jewelry, my groom getting ready, pics of the guys, pics of the girls, pics of me, then the ceremony, posed pictures with family, pics celebrating on the way to the reception, more posed pics of the wedding party, candids at the reception, ending the last page with a large print of us kissing. The pics are different sizes throughout, with most being 4 smaller prints to a page. Wedding party pics are 2 medium prints to a page, and there are a few large prints throughout the book. I tried to mix it up, when it was a photo of just my husband and I, so that not all were of us kissing, lol. I love my photo album! It took a long time, but I'm very proud of the result.
A tip that photographer gave me that were helpful: If you have pics of large groups of people (i.e. posed wedding party) make sure the print is larger or you won't really be able to make out the faces that well.
Something else to think about... Who says you have to make just one book? If there are too many favorite photos for just one, then split them up. Do one of the ceremony, one of the reception, one of the posed pictures, and maybe one with highlights of all three.
Have fun designing!
You sound like you have this down pat already. Sounds great!
The only other thing......
Consider making more than one book with different views for your parents and for you. For example. My husbands folks were divorced so we made them different albums with different people. I've been married almost 30 years and those albums are coming back to me now as the folks let go of their things.
We did the same thing with our wedding photographer - a friend with a good eye and a passion. She made us a scrapbook of her fave pics, which is awesome and something I'd never do. I have a 9-picture frame in our living room of some of the chronological highlights (me entering room, us leaving the room, us sneaking a kiss outside of room before going into reception, us dancing a silly dance while I wore a silly hat, us pooped out on the stairs at the end, etc). For the rest, I just printed them out and put them in a photo album big enough to hold the 300 pics.
Good luck!
Unless you are deadset about using shuttetfly, let me suggest picaboo! I love love love it for doing photobooks! You can use your own photo as a background, superimpose others - more like the digital wedding albums I have seen including my sister's. Stay with more chron, mix in candids, suggest a groom's page and a bride's page if you have enough great pics of him with family/friends, you with family/friends, etc. I did use a wedding photographer BUT I designed my own wedding album! I am (just a BIT) of a control freak ;). Definitely start by removing from the loaded photos those that definitely do not make the cut and choosing between very similar favorites- it will help weed the number down :) good luck!
I also like the idea of mixing up the candids and posed shots, have some crowded collage pages and some single, larger shots. Don't forget to include some of you getting ready with all your girls (if you have them). Also some of my favorite photos are from our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. I am planning on creating our wedding album this fall (2 years later) and love the idea of a photo book - why hadn't I thought of that?! Thanks for the idea:)
To AllisonF - I've never used shutterfly or picaboo - can you crowd as many photos as you want on a page (collage-style) and basically choose the layout you want throughout the book?
I make shutterfly photobooks and they are awesome! If you make a 12x12 book, you can add pages & put up to 1000 photos in one book (each page costs extra money) so you could easily put all 500 in one book & therefore would not have to eliminate any pics you didn't want to.
Also, shutterfly has sample books you can look at, so you can see what other wedding books look like.
I think most people do chronological...wedding prep, then ceremony, then reception.
Another nice thing about shutterfly...you can reorder the pages after you make them. So make each page the way you want & then play with the order. Move stuff around until you find a layout you like. Shutterfly saves your stuff for a really long time (maybe forever, I'm not sure). I still have projects saved that are 4 years old. So, you have plenty of time to play around.
i've done a ton of photo books using shutterfly...i'm doing one now from our family vacation this summer :) they turn out beautiful. there's a wizard in there called storyboard (i think) that puts your pics in order of date/time taken. then you drag the ones you want over to the right onto the page you want. depending on the number you choose to fit on a page, shutterfly will automatically lay it out for you. it actually does a really nice initial job (i always move stuff around anyways, but as a forst attempt, it's a good plae to start). have fun! and if they are not on sale, do one and let it sit in there...in a few days you'll more than likely get an email offering a sale on your book :)
I would definitely make an outline as I still need to do ours - 7 years!!!!
I plan to do a storyline like engagement, invites, rehearsal dinner, getting ready, details, ceremony, cake, reception ... Definitely use a hard cover option as Shutterfly gives better quality in that option! Good luck!
