I've been looking forward to this day for a while now. After the wedding, I took a couple weeks off from all things wedding related, I would casually look at photos from the big day, but not too seriously, I needed a bit of time to be able to properly deal with all that had just gone down. It was the best day of my life, but when it was all said and done I was exhausted!
Anyways, a few weeks passed, I regained my energy, and I was ready to tackle a very daunting task; sorting through somewhere around 1000 photo's from our wedding day and organizing them into an album. The truth is, this is a task that I absolutely LOVE to do! I am an organizer at heart, and a very visual person, so organizing page layouts and telling the story of our wedding day through pictures was something I enjoyed immensely!
I created an album and ordered a few copies through iphoto. They came beautifully packaged in a lovely little box.
Inside the box the book is wrapped in a plastic envelope. I love that the book feels really important with all this care and wrapping.
The book is hardcover and has a printed dust jacket, there is a big photo on the front, little photos on the inside flaps and one on the back as well. Under the dust jacket is a lovely suede book, with the title of the book printed in silver.
Then we get to the inside! The pages are glossy and thick, the photo quality is excellent and best of all the pages look exactly the way I wanted them to. This seems obvious, but sometimes things can shift or just look different when they are taken from computer screen to printed version, but this looks perfect.
I have several favorite page spreads. Too many to share, I love them all! This one of the entrance to the church is quite special. I love the kids on the left, and then both shots of me and my dad, our church was so spectacular, just looking at those images makes me excited!
Perhaps my favorite is the reveal. We took photos of the wedding party before the ceremony; that was a decision we had to think about for a while. Would seeing each other before the ceremony change things? Would it make Chris' first impression of me any less special? The answer to those questions is a giant NO! Since we had the luxury of staging the perfect reveal and capturing the whole thing on camera we were able to really savour the moment. We both got misty eyed, we were just so happy and excited. Every time I look at these pages I'll remember that feeling.
Here's what I think about the photo book situation: we have a Mac, and we organize all of our photos in iphoto. I wanted to put together a photo book for my parents and Chris' parents for Christmas. I researched my options, kodac gallery, snapfish, blurb... they all had layout limitations that I couldn't live with. iphoto was by far the easiest, since all our photos are already there, there was no uploading hundreds of photos to website and then working on the layout, only to then realize that you forgot a photo and had to re-upload and re-edit. It was a peice of cake, it's all done in the same program, so you can edit the shots super easily if you realize that in order to make it work for your layout you need it to be vertical instead of horizontal. I hear that mypublisher is a very good option as well. I ordered a copy of the book for us as well, and though I had at one point been very set on the idea of making us an old fashioned album with real printed photos and photo corners, now that I've got these books in my hands, I'm not sure I need to. The book turned out perfectly and I am very pleased.
Because I know that some people will be interested in seeing more shots (I'm looking at you Connie!) here are a few more page spreads.
The girls all looked so pretty, I had so many beautiful shots of them to chose from. I also LOVE the bridal detail shots, the shoes, bracelet, ring, dress...
The boys all looked very hansom as well. Its the one (and possibly the only) time I will see this group of dudes so well dressed.
Ahh, the ceremony, the first kiss, our triumphant walk down the aisle and out the church. I love the lighting in that shot of Chris and I walking down the aisle, I feel like a celebrity.
The elated moment of actually leaving the church, fists held high (and held together!) and then lots of high-fives and kisses! We actually did it! It's official! I'm thrilled we got the group shot on the church steps. So many happy faces.
Towards the end of the night, the speeches, the cutting of the cake, the first dance... We had so many great photos to work with, our photographers were awesome. This book will certainly bring lots of joy to Chris and I for years to come.
photos by Supa Studio.
