When Tanja and I were planning our wedding (well, Tanja did pretty much all of it) wedding albums were a strange concept to me. Growing up, I never learned about making photo albums, let alone full-on heirlooms. The photos my parents made went little further than living in the plastic sleeve bundles you’d get for free when developing a roll of film. As far as wedding albums went, I only knew them as thick, leather books with a cut-out in the cover (apparently called ‘cameo’) and peeking at a bridal couple (with weird hairdos) gazing into the future and surrounded by a dreamy white vignette. The true value of these books was foreign to me. Sure I was happy to hear our wedding photographer included a wedding album in our package, but I didn’t care all that much. Until the days after our wedding.
I remember getting up on the morning after our wedding. For months we’d lived towards it. Months of planning, meeting vendors, running around, arranging all the nitty, gritty details. And I thought about the amazing times of the day before and the incredible people that came to our wedding. It made me emotional because we’d leave it all behind in just a few months by immigrating to Canada. And at that moment, I realized the value of our wedding album. Sure the digital photos would be fantastic, but to have a carefully curated physical album, with the highlights of that day. That excited me.
5 years married
Now 5 years later, I’m happier than ever to have our wedding album. Our world has gone more digital than ever before. Every single day we scroll through hundreds of images, but less than ever do we take the time to actually pause and admire the individual photographs. Our brain has barely gotten the time to register the visual impulse, when our finger is already twitching to scroll to the next morsel of information. And that’s not even accounting for the effort it takes to dig up those photos from the depts of your hard drive.
A tangible wedding album is different. It’s an experience of all senses. First there’s the big box that holds the album. It’s like a treasure chest that holds a magical secret. When you open it, you’re greeted by the faint smell of leather, paper and ink (myself, I love smelling books). And then there’s the smooth leather cover, with your names stamped into it. You can actually feel the bas-relief when you let your fingers glide over them. Go ahead, they won’t fade. Everything about this album tells you it’s made to last. When you lift the album out of its shrine, you’ll notice the weight of it. There’s something about weighty books, it makes the book feel sacred and awakens an anticipation to discover its secrets.
The wedding album experience
Open the first spread. You’ll be greeted by a familiar sight: it’s the wedding photo you’ve seen so many times in the last few weeks. And yet it looks so different, so much more alive, with vivid colors and deep, rich blacks. Allow yourself to sink into the moment, relive the emotions, cherish the laughter and tears. And when you’re ready, slowly come back and move to the next page. That’s right, that was only one page. Time seems to be a different medium when you’re going through a wedding album. It continues to surprise me whenever I’m inspecting your wedding album. The same 70 photos that took less than 30 seconds to scroll through on a screen, require the tenfold when on paper. That and your absolute presence.
That is why you want to get a wedding album.
The wedding album design process
As a little bonus we’ll give you an insight into how we’ll create your wedding album.
Step 1: the predesign
When starting from scratch, curating and arranging is always the biggest hurdle. It’s a lot easier to adapt something existing. And that’s exactly what we’ll do for you. Picking the highlights, deciding what photos go best together, arranging them on the spread. You name it, and we’ve got you covered! All you need to do is sit back, and wait for your invitation to the first predesign.
The next step for you, is to adapt the predesign to your liking. In total you’ll receive two rounds of changes, during which you can change absolutely everything. Best of all: the entire process is done online. With our album drafting software, you can leaf through the album, and click anywhere to write a request for change.
Next we’ll get back to work draft the changes, and send you a new invite to the updated design. In our experience, two rounds of changes should be plenty enough to reach a final design, but just in case, you can get more at just $50/round.
Once you’ve approved a final design, we’ll move to the next phase.
Step 2: customizing the cover
With a choice of genuine leathers in both modern and vintage finishes, you can truly celebrate your creativity! And of course, you can get any text, such as your names and wedding date, stamped onto the wedding album!
Step 3: get excited about your album
Once you’ve finalized step 2, we’ll go ahead and order your album with our album supplier (who is based in the Vancouver Lower Mainland). On average it takes 4 to 6 weeks from the time of order until your album will be in your hands, but we’ll keep you updated every step of the way. As soon as we have it, you’ll know.
Most asked questions
How many pages do albums come with?
Your wedding album includes 20 pages (10 spreads) in the base price, but you can added pages as you like. In the design we create for you, we let the visual story of your wedding day decide on the required pages. Sometimes we’ll add a few, but the choice is yours whether to keep or trim.
How long does the whole album process take?
Predesign: 2 weeks
First round of changes: up to you
Redesign based on your request: 2 weeks
Second round of changes: up to you
Redesign based on your request: 2 weeks
Third round of changes/final approval: up to you
Manufacturing of your album: 6 weeks
What are ‘parent albums’?
Parent albums are copies of your Big Wedding Album, but in a smaller size. Since they’re scaled down duplicates (and don’t require additional design) they come at a lower price.
How much does the album cost?
Unlike this post, our prices change over time. Get in touch with us and we’ll send you our current pricing.
