Our Full Wedding Album from Blurb.com

[lurkyloo]

Since there have been a couple threads about printing wedding photos and albums this week, I thought I would post pictures of the full wedding album I finally made on Blurb.com.

Initally, I made two small, softcover Blurb albums to pass around at our at-home reception and then give to the grandmas. There's more info about the process here, but basically for these I stuck with Blurb's templates and used their BookSmart software.

However, for our full album, I wanted more design flexibility and to be able to print re-creations of our program, invitations, etc. right on the pages - since I wasn't going to have a traditional album to glue the originals in. So I had to wait until Blurb began offering the option to upload your own PDF created in whatever design software you want (I used Adobe InDesign). Then it took me about 180 hours to comb through our 1,531 photos and narrow them down. The book is still WAY too long by wedding album standards - 248 pages! - but it's the size of a regular art book because it's press printed on nice paper, not actual matted photos.

Technically, ours is not a wedding "album," it's a photo book. Photo albums contain photo prints that have been affixed behind mats or glued on an entire page (i.e. flush mounted). These give the best resolution, but they're also very spendy. Photo books are printed on a four-color press just like the coffee table books you buy on Amazon, so the image quality is that of a magazine or book.


Here's a sampling of the layouts as they appear on Blurb.com. I still need to take pictures of the actual book...

You can see where the pictures overlap to account for the gutter in the two-page spread.

On the left is a re-creation of our program

I also put our vows in on the appropriate pages

I thought it would be nice to identify the people in each portrait for posterity/my future senility...

I had to include the Best Man's "Jungle Cruise Skipper"-style speech...

The process was exhausting but very rewarding creatively. If you're not that crafty or don't have time, I would recommend using the templates provided by whatever website you choose or getting your album from your photographer!

 

[PinkSleepingBeauty]

Wow, that looks fantastic! Your photo's are amazing!

 

[lpizzuro123]

Your book is just amazing. I love the way you were able to personalize it and add so many pictures and pages.

We had Misty as our photographer and also decided not to do a traditional wedding album and did a Shutterfly one. We did a 12 x 12 book with 101 pages (the limit to Shutterfly) with a paded photo cover and it has over 500 photos in it.

I have been going back and forth about getting a professional album done and saw the thread today about Mpix that you and Vanessa posted. I am considering doing a 5 x 7 metalic page one with either 24 or 40 pictures. Was wondering if you had any experience with them or knew of someone that did.

Again, your book is great and such a wonderful rememberance.

Linda

 

[wintermouse]

Your book is amazing! It makes me so happy to see how well this can be done. We are using Misty for our photographer and we are not getting an album made by her, so it is awesome to see that we can make it ourselves! Again, beautiful photos. I can only hope our wedding is as nice as yours was!!

 

[annnewjerz]

So even though I'm not a Disney bride, I do still have to comment. Your photobook looks spectacular!

I have made one with Blurb.com before per your recommendation and the quality of the book was outstanding (I did a hard cover book with the cover photo printed right on the book rather than a sleeve), the price was affordable, they didn't have a page limit (or if they did it was super high) whereas other companies limited you to like 100 pages and I found their selection of pre-fab layouts for the photos to be the best.

Fantastic job on the book and if you do have the time and inclination, please do take real pictures of the book when it arrived and post in your TR as well, since I don't frequent this board.

 

[MainStMandy]

Carrie this is just GORGEOUS!! I have used blurb once and loved it. I definitely plan on using it again especially after seeing this! Thanks for posting!

 

[lurkyloo]

Wow, that looks fantastic! Your photo's are amazing!

Hey, thanks!

Your book is just amazing. I love the way you were able to personalize it and add so many pictures and pages.

We had Misty as our photographer and also decided not to do a traditional wedding album and did a Shutterfly one. We did a 12 x 12 book with 101 pages (the limit to Shutterfly) with a paded photo cover and it has over 500 photos in it.

I have been going back and forth about getting a professional album done and saw the thread today about Mpix that you and Vanessa posted. I am considering doing a 5 x 7 metalic page one with either 24 or 40 pictures. Was wondering if you had any experience with them or knew of someone that did.

I have never printed an album with Mpix, but I've done photos and cards. I *love* their metallic finish! It gives the colors such depth and clarity. All of my experience ordering from Mpix has been positive - fast shipping, good customer service. And the one time we did have a problem (improperly trimmed greeting cards), they fixed it right away.

Your book is amazing! It makes me so happy to see how well this can be done. We are using Misty for our photographer and we are not getting an album made by her, so it is awesome to see that we can make it ourselves! Again, beautiful photos. I can only hope our wedding is as nice as yours was!!

Thank you! I think you'll have a lot of fun making your own album. It's great to be able to put in as many pictures as you want (and if you wanna put one in twice, that's OK too. )

I have made one with Blurb.com before per your recommendation and the quality of the book was outstanding (I did a hard cover book with the cover photo printed right on the book rather than a sleeve), the price was affordable, they didn't have a page limit (or if they did it was super high) whereas other companies limited you to like 100 pages and I found their selection of pre-fab layouts for the photos to be the best.

Exactly why I picked Blurb. I believe they let you do up to 400 pages, the per-page price is cheaper, and the layouts are way more interesting.

I'll try to get some pix of the actual book soon.

Carrie this is just GORGEOUS!! I have used blurb once and loved it. I definitely plan on using it again especially after seeing this! Thanks for posting!

Thank you! I should note that when I first ordered copies of this book, one of them had a misprinted page. But it was very easy to contact Blurb, and they immediately replaced the book for free.

 

[Bridie1996]

Thanks for posting this, for a number of reasons. I've just started our blurb book ( my second, the first being a family album type) and was trying to decide if I wanted to include things like the program/ invitation etc. Yours has given me some ideas on how to do that.

Also, I was concerned about having 90 pages and that is without any of Randy's pictures to include yet! So your 248 pager makes me feel better!

 

[PryncessChrysty]

Wow, that looks absolutely amazing, Carrie! 248 pages?!? You must be exhausted!

I especially loved the pages from your ceremony where you show your MOH across to your DH's Best Man, that was a great idea. I also loved that you included your vows. It's just beautiful!

 

[Aburns8]

Thank you Carrie for sharing! Your books looks gorgeous! The pictures are amazing!

 

[Lorelei528]

The awsomeness is overwhelming!!!

Wanna do ours? There would be nice compensation of course!

 

[S <3 M]

WOW! that's pretty awesome! You did a wonderful job!

 

[lurkyloo]

Thanks for posting this, for a number of reasons. I've just started our blurb book ( my second, the first being a family album type) and was trying to decide if I wanted to include things like the program/ invitation etc. Yours has given me some ideas on how to do that.

Also, I was concerned about having 90 pages and that is without any of Randy's pictures to include yet! So your 248 pager makes me feel better!

Yeah, I say put in as many as you want - it's your album after all!

Wow, that looks absolutely amazing, Carrie! 248 pages?!? You must be exhausted!

I especially loved the pages from your ceremony where you show your MOH across to your DH's Best Man, that was a great idea. I also loved that you included your vows. It's just beautiful!

Thank you!

Thank you Carrie for sharing! Your books looks gorgeous! The pictures are amazing!

Thanks for coming to visit over here!

The awsomeness is overwhelming!!!

Wanna do ours? There would be nice compensation of course!

Bright and early one morning during the process I thought to myself "I'll bet it would be fun to do this for other people!" Twelve hours later it was

WOW! that's pretty awesome! You did a wonderful job!

Thank you so much!

 

[mothermouse]

How nice Looks like a fun wedding. I had a disney wedding at home, how nice to have it at different sites at disney. something you will always remember

 

[PixieTopaz]

Beautiful

Is your wedding featured in a magazine? That's what the last photo looks like

 

[DisneyDmbNut]

soo...help the craft-challenged.

You had great resolution on your photos so you could enlarge the photos without a problem...a lot of my pictures aren't high res..but since I don't have an album..I think this would be something I could make to clutter up my coffee table...will blurb tell you if the pictures aren't optimal for that size?

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

Stunning!

 

[beautifultomorrow]

Thanks for sharing this! Your book is just gorgeous! I am a newspaper page designer so the layout flexibility you describe is very appealing to me.

Once you made the PDF's in InDesign did you have any trouble tranferring them onto the pages on blurb? I was just wondering if it was easy to bleed your layouts to the edge of the pages and things like that. I know sometimes things like that can be a headache and not turn out the exact way you want.

I really like the way you incorporated aspects like the program into the book, everything looks flawless!

 

[PrincessShea]

soo...help the craft-challenged.

You had great resolution on your photos so you could enlarge the photos without a problem...a lot of my pictures aren't high res..but since I don't have an album..I think this would be something I could make to clutter up my coffee table...will blurb tell you if the pictures aren't optimal for that size?

If you use the blurb software and use an image with too low of a resolution, a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in the middle will appear; telling you the resolution is too low and giving you a recommendation for how big it should be to work.

 

[DisneyLeah]

Carrie - WOW! WOW! WOW and THANKS THANKS THANKS!

I was asking a lot of questions about printing, albums and the like - so I really appreciate you starting this thread and sharing this great info about blurb.com!

Thanks to everyone else who's added info on this thread and the other photos one I started too!

What would I do without all of you!!

Thanks!
Leah