Wedding Album-To DIY or not to DIY??

eskimoparty

My Fiancée and I are getting married next October and are in the process of looing for wedding photographers. We are unsure whether to get the storybook wedding album included or to do it ourselves. We like the thought spending time going through the photos and putting it all together ourselves but we are afraid that it wont look as professional as it would if the photographer did it.I have been looking at the blurb.com site and it looks really good and user friendly.

Has anybody made thier own wedding storybook?? IF so did it look like you hoped?? Any other advice comments welcome!!

Acoshla

I've made 4 photobooks online, not for my wedding but for gifts and work purposes, and I find it very easy and quite enjoyable, I plan to make my own anyway, on photobox.ie

deskgirl

We've booked a CD only option with our photographer and are going to decide after the wedding if we will do our own album or get them to do it.

Rew

Depends on your own eye for design and layout. There easily put together and printed but someone who does a lot of it will be used to maxamizing the impact of every photo, cropping photos and the flow of the book. Im going down the CD route but that's in order to pay for a 2nd photographer on the day, if I had the money id get them to do the albums.

Sunny Dayz

I think it would depend on how creative/ artistic you are. If you have the time and patience and an eye for photography and design, you should be ok.

We got our album (a mixture of storyboard and tradition layouts) done by a professional and we were delighted with the results. You have to bear in mind that the photographer is a professional and has a great eye for what photos work well together, photos sizes, colour vs black & white, etc. What we got back was nearly a work of art!!

However, we did get two wedding photo albums as wedding gifts which (when we get around to it eventually) we will fill with photos our friends and relations took on the day that we are getting by degrees.

Borderfox

As said above if you have the time and a good eye for layout then you will make something very personal.

clint_silver

Sunny Dayz wrote: »

I think it would depend on how creative/ artistic you are. If you have the time and patience and an eye for photography and design, you should be ok.

We got our album (a mixture of storyboard and tradition layouts) done by a professional and we were delighted with the results. You have to bear in mind that the photographer is a professional and has a great eye for what photos work well together, photos sizes, colour vs black & white, etc. What we got back was nearly a work of art!!

However, we did get two wedding photo albums as wedding gifts which (when we get around to it eventually) we will fill with photos our friends and relations took on the day that we are getting by degrees.

I'll second this. We had a pro do ours but we did our own as well from different shots that came in from friends, We were very pleased with our own and thought it wouldnt get much better til the pro album came in, different gravy.

cute_cow

deskgirl wrote: »

We've booked a CD only option with our photographer and are going to decide after the wedding if we will do our own album or get them to do it.

We've decided to do the same. Our photographer offers the storybook or tradtional album, but we decided against it. He did say down the line, 6-18 months after the wedding if we decide we want one, he will order for us.

We have purchased a few photo frames for ourselves, like this and this not expensive but exactly what we are looking for, and are going to be pemanently on the wall, so won't make much difference if expensive or not! Can choose ourselves which to put in and print off at home.

Using blurb.com we might create a small booklet for our parents. And if at a later stage we decide we want an album, we can return to our photgrapher and get it done.

omr2011

We didn't get an album from the photographer, just the CD (altho he printed about 450 photos and put approx 200 in a standard album) and we were going to down the road of doing it ourselves. 6 months later and I still havn't done anything about sorting it out, apart from downloading various softwares from a few websites. I kinda regret not getting the album from day one but if ye have the time and patience to do it yourself, ye should DIY......ye could always check with photographer if ye have option to go back and get professional album later on if ye change your minds

A lot of photographers that I know of (or have heard of through former brides/grooms) don't give the full size photos on CD. Keep this in mind. If you do a big wedding book yourself, with images that are not big enough to print to the size of the book, your end result is pixelated and blotchy looking photographs.

Most experienced photographers, from what I can see, give resized images on disc, as this allows them the opportunity to sell larger prints/books/etc. at a later date to the couple (Wedding photography is kinda seasonal, though, so it makes sense for your average Wedding photographer to do this, as it helps create an income for the times he's not working).

A photographer that I know personally, and who is in the game a while, reckons he'll never give the full size images because they always go straight to Facebook when the Bride/Groom get them, but due to their large size, Facebook compresses the life out of them and they look terrible (which is a poor reflection on the photographer) so by giving resized down images, he creates a potential for future income and protects himself from a bad Facebook image (which he rightly considers to be extremely important).

It's just something to keep in mind.

Personally, I don't see the point in a photographer offering enlargement prints or books, etc. if he's giving the full size images at a cheaper price anyway. Doesn't make sense to me (that's just me, though).

kandr10

Deleted User wrote: »

A lot of photographers that I know of (or have heard of through former brides/grooms) don't give the full size photos on CD. Keep this in mind. If you do a big wedding book yourself, with images that are not big enough to print to the size of the book, your end result is pixelated and blotchy looking photographs.

Most experienced photographers, from what I can see, give resized images on disc, as this allows them the opportunity to sell larger prints/books/etc. at a later date to the couple (Wedding photography is kinda seasonal, though, so it makes sense for your average Wedding photographer to do this, as it helps create an income for the times he's not working).

A photographer that I know personally, and who is in the game a while, reckons he'll never give the full size images because they always go straight to Facebook when the Bride/Groom get them, but due to their large size, Facebook compresses the life out of them and they look terrible (which is a poor reflection on the photographer) so by giving resized down images, he creates a potential for future income and protects himself from a bad Facebook image (which he rightly considers to be extremely important).

It's just something to keep in mind.

Personally, I don't see the point in a photographer offering enlargement prints or books, etc. if he's giving the full size images at a cheaper price anyway. Doesn't make sense to me (that's just me, though).

That's crazy! So this person won't give full size because of how they might look on facebook? None of his business what the b&g do with their photos after they have paid for the service!

OP I did my own photobook with mymemory.com (always have offers on). I was very impressed with the results. I was working with full size images though! One thing you can't do with the photobook that a photographer could potentially do, is to have one photo printed across two pages. Maybe you could do a mock up to see how easy/difficult it is for you to design your own. Do one with a collection of family photos or holiday snaps or something to try it out.