Find the best wedding photo album to save your lovely memories!
Today, there are individual albums of almost everything on the market, with different orientations, styles and materials. Of course, as with any product, everyone is looking for the right option that fits their style and is the best value for money. That is why I tried to put together a guide that can help you find the proper possible album for you, in which you will be happy to place the most important memories from your wedding day or any other special occasion.
To find the perfect album for you, I have created an ultimate guide to help you keep your most important captured memories with you or your loved ones in the possible personal form. So don’t stop reading; keep moving!
Why is a wedding photo album important?
Each age has its specific style and characteristics, which makes it truly special and unique. Whose parents have not shown wedding or children’s albums or even a travel report from a vacation when they were a child? They contain the past, the valid hidden values of a family.
And, of course, the viewer can find stories, feelings, and moments in these objects, which can remarkably show the story of a family’s life. We keep the most important memories for us in these family photo albums, which we would later like to show to the most essential and unique people so they can also get to know our stories.
How to categorize them?
To this day, you can still find the kind of adhesive photo albums in which physically printed pasted photo prints one by one, but these are now more popular than fully printed photo books. As I already mentioned, they are available in different sizes, orientations, and materials, and we can also decide the number of pages. Of course, all parameters of this can change, and we plan practically everything to determine what we want to see as the final product. The main categories to find the perfect match for your album are:
- Sizes
- Orientation
- Materials
Sizes:
The following table shows the standard album sizes. Of course, in addition to this, printers can provide any size of the album pages. However, if we have particular needs, it is worth looking for a bookbinder and a printer. When choosing an album for its orientation, you should consider a few things. For example, it is worthwhile to broadly observe the layout of the selected images and decide on the album’s structure.
In addition, you should consider other factors when choosing the size of a photo album.
These are:
- How many photos would you like to include in the album?
- Would you like to have text or captions?
- What are the sizes of the pictures?
Orientation:
Whether a physical or digital copy, it’s one of the most important first steps. To be able to find the correct presentation of our pictures, the first thing we have to do is to select the images that are dearest to us and put them aside in a collection. When we have selected all these, we can examine the pictures more closely to help us choose the proper orientation.
It is important to note that landscape corresponds to a horizontal layout and portrait to a vertical format. Of course, the square design we can interpret as a square form.
Each orientation has its pros and cons, and when professionals recommend it and in what cases it is not. So let’s take these in order now.
Horizontal / Landscape format:
Horizontal is the most impressive one. In this case, the width of the album is greater than the height. With an image with a horizontal layout, we can capture more objects and all of them from a wider angle of view.
It can also be adapted entirely to create a photo album. Landscape photo albums are more practical; we can place several components (even pictures) in a horizontally arranged photo album without feeling overcrowded. The horizontal orientation is also constructive in that we can show a broader range of the environment of the photographed object or person, which plays a significant role in telling the whole story.
Most often, we use this kind of orientation. If we place several pictures horizontally, our eyes will automatically start reading the information from left to right and will not cause any confusion. You can use a landscape image on one page if you want a significant visual effect. On the other page, you can place other photos that support it.
Vertical / Portrait format:
The vertical layout can cause problems countless times.
Why?
Because they often look like a yearbook if we need to be more careful about how we edit them. If you choose this type of arrangement, make sure to place an appropriate number of pages, and make sure that you do not just line up the images within the pages but often use overlaps to make the pictures much more accessible. We should also pay attention not to choosing small sizes for the albums with a vertical layout but in large sizes; they can even create a “fine art” book effect.
This arrangement can also be problematic since it is generally almost impossible to place only portrait pictures in an album since the beloved images are probably a mixture of portrait and landscape pictures. After all, as I already mentioned with the other one, how significant an effect it has if we place a piece of a horizontal image on a page, in this case, it is simply impossible. It is also because if you put a single landscape image on a page with a vertical layout, you get a vast void with a destructive rather than a constructive effect.
This arrangement is not accessible from the point of view of reading the story either, since the reading is done from top to bottom and then from top to bottom again on the other page, so we have to pay close attention to what image layout we use on which part of the page.
Square format:
These were the most popular in the past, as most albums with slide-in images were made this way. But it is still a prevalent orientation, especially in wedding and family photo albums. The most practical thing about these albums is that professionals can easily resize them anytime. If we have a large square photo album, we can have the same album done in a smaller size at any time.
Square orientation is the most affordable in terms of scaling. Two landscape pictures fit perfectly under each other, so we can still take advantage of the effect of a strong landscape picture. However, this also creates a problem with the arrangement that if you try to place a piece of portrait or landscape image on a single page, you must forcefully cut out the image. There is also a problem when you try to insert four landscape or four portrait images on one page, as there is a strip on both sides, which does not create a lovely appearance.
Materials:
All of this we could, of course, break down into the interior and exterior of the album. So let’s see what different materials we can find on the market!
The market has roughly as many paper types as companies making photo albums. I have collected my top 5 favourite companies or businesses that make photo albums, and I have also collected who offers which photo paper or what kind of material for the outside of the photo album.
So here is the list:
Top 5 providers in the UK:
1. Snapfish
Book cover types:
- Hardcover
- Matte
- Leather
- Linen
- Softcover
- Paper
Paper Finish Types:
- Layflat
- Metallic
- Glossy
- Satin
2. CEWE
Book cover types:
- Hardcover
- Softcover
- Booklet
- Leather
- Linen
Paper Finish Types:
- Classic Paper
- High Gloss Paper
- True Matte Paper
- Satin Paper
- Classic Photographic Paper
- Gloss Photographic Paper
- Matte Photographic Paper
3. Mixbook
Book cover types:
- Softcover
- Hardcover Glossy
- Hardcover Soft Touch Matte
Paper Finish Types:
- Semi-Gloss
- Premium Matte Lay Flat
4. Blurb
Book cover types:
- Hardcover
- Sotfcover
Paper Finish Types:
- Mohawk proPhoto
- Mohawk Superfine Eggshell
- Premium Lustre
- Premium Matte
- Standard
6. Milkbooks
Book cover types:
- Linen
- Softcover
- Leather
- Premium Coated Cloth
- Vegan Leather
Paper Finish Types:
- Semi-Gloss
- Satin
- Lustre
- Matt Ivory
- Matt White
- Textured
Regardless of the type, style, shape, or material of the album you choose, be sure to pay attention to the fact that professionals can often really help you. Ask for the help of someone who knows what to put where and what effect it will have in telling the story since you are not creating all this for yourself but for the people who are important to you, with whom you want to share your experiences and stories.
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