Where and how to make a wedding album yourself guide Michigan wedding photographer Marci Curtis offers resource guide for do it yourself wedding photo album companies with links to their sites.
Current Wedding Album Resource Guide with Pricing, Comparisons and Links
For "Do It Yourself" Wedding Clients
Coffee Table Style Books
What is a "Coffee Table Style" book? It typically has a hard cover, is sturdy. Here's my bias for photo albums. I'm a HUGE fan of large landscape oriented books. I love the 14x11 size. I don't photograph in squares and have a huge bias against square albums (unless you're only using Instagram photos.. but that would be silly). So much wasted space. I also love lay flat pages since you can see the entire photos and they are great for creating really dynamic spreads across the center of the page, for better layout options and of course, for panoramic photos. I also personally love creating photo covers for my books. I mean, I'm a photographer. Why won't I want a photo on the cover of any wedding photo album I make?! These three factors are what I think take DIY photo albums to the level and look pretty darn spectacular. By definition, coffee table style books look like a regular hard cover book, but unless you're planning on having over 100 pages, I don't think it exactly looks like what I would call a "coffee table" book! I've got a version that I design and sell. The pages are thicker than I've seen in the consumer market and they lay flat. They call them "art hinged" paper books, but they are in the same vein as the ones I talk about below. If you'd like to see my sample of a coffee table style wedding photo album, feel free to check it out. Here are my top picks that fit my top criteria along with pricing. The yearbooks I create for my own family are usually 100 pages, so I've tried to include pricing to reflect that. Most wedding albums offered here start with a base number of pages and spreads (like 20 pages with is 10 spreads), but I wanted to give you a good guestimate for pricing. These are in no particular order here to my preferences and I've only used a few of these myself. The company I order my albums from does not work directly with wedding clients. If that changes, I will let you know.
PikPerfect - Their site is; www.pikperfect.com - has enormous 16x12, photo cover layflat options. $369 for first 24 pages, $40 for every 4 after that.
Shutterfly - The behemoth "Shutterfly" took over for "My Publisher" incorporating the large size we love, but so far, the quality control isn't nearly the same as the original company. They did keep My Publisher's 14x11 size and their lay flat options though. You can also almost always find a 50% off coupon online by googling "shutterfly coupons". If you can't find a discount code, keep your eye on their site because their photo books are often on sale. 14x11, layflat options, photo cover. $215 base price, for deluxe (thicker pages) Layflat, 20 pages + $4.09 per page after that. Their site is www.shutterfly.com. Another benefit is that once you've uploaded your favorite shots and sent out the link to friends and family, then you can simply click on the "make a book" option and voila, in an hour you can make a marvelous book that will arrive a few days later!
Mixbook - 14x11 size is available for $90 for first 20 pages, but layflat is only available in the smaller 8.5x11 format and is currently $130 for the first 20 pages, and they do have photo covers. Their site is; www.mixbook.com
Picaboo - 14x11, photo cover, layflat option available; $145 first 20 pages, $3.60 every page thereafter. Available for up to 100 pages. They are at www.picaboo.com
ZNO - www.zno.com 14x11, photo cover option, layflat options. Starts with 20 pages for $146. Max is 100 pages for $446. I really like this company. Easy to work with, professional looking albums.
Photo Book America - 14x11, photo cover, layflat options. Their pricing isn't listed (I think because they always have deals going), but they also have a 17.5" x 12" book option. Bigger is always better! Gotta try it!!!. Their site is www.photobookamerica.com.
Mail Pix - This site does offer Layflat options, but I don't think the pages are very thick (as others clearly are on this reference page). They say their 14"x11" photo hardcover lay flat books start at $90 for the first 20 pages, with $1.90 each additional page up to 74 maximum. This seems like a super no frills wedding album website. www.mailpix.com.
Flushmount "Chunky" Style Books
What is a "Flushmount" book? They have thick, cardboard pages and always remind me of the books my girls used to chew on when they were babies! They are quite the rage right now, but remember that they often have a maximum of 20 pages (40 sides) because they are so very thick. I've got two examples of the ones I design and provide. I have a sample of what I offer on my site; which is a more contemporary photo wrapped flush mount wedding album.That will limit the number of photos you can put in your book to around 80, so keep that in mind if this is a style you're considering.
Storybook Pages - Looking to have professionals design your book and are you looking for the chunky style wedding albums? Check out www.storybookpages.com. They're a great resource and are familiar with and use all the major book making companies, so they can tailor a book to fit your needs and do the layouts as well. For example, Zookbinders (this company has been around for a LONG time), has a 20 page 12x12 (no horizontal wedding photo albums from this company) for $670 up to their 80 page wedding albums for $1,540. Let's check one more brand of wedding albums; Photo Albums Direct (sounds super classy, eh?). They offer thin and think pages (think of the chunky board books you chewed on as a baby). Their thick 14x11 photo cover book is $869 for the first 20 pages up to $2,174 for an 80 page book. Cover options are varied and all have an extra add on price.
These Didn't Meet My Criteria, But Check Them Out Anyways!
These companies that either don't quite offer the styles of books I like, or didn't have layflat or one charge 25 % more just to take their logo off every page! But since my criteria might not be yours, here they are;
Artifact Uprising - Their site is www.artifactuprising.com. Photo covers, large sizes - no horizontal 14"x11", but a vertical 11"x14" version with layflat options start at $240 for 20 pages (10 spreads) and cost $12 for each additional spread (2 pages).
MILK - 13x11, cloth with cut out for photo. Layflat options with options for parent books as well. They start at $305 for the first 24 pages. They're at www.milkbooks.com.
Blurb - 13x11, photo cover, layflat, thick pages (I'll start with the Premium Lustre - Layflat is $120 up to the double thick Mohawk proPhoto Pearl - Layflat for $170 for first 20 pages of layflat + $5 for each additional page. You also have to pay an extra 25% to get rid of their "blurb" logo! Thought for sure this would have gone away, but it's still there. They can be found at www.blurb.com.
Presto Book - Their site is; www.prestophoto.com. Has 14x11, photo cover with layflat and thick paper. They charge separately for the book and the binding (odd, since why would anyone order a non bound photo album?!) but as best I can tell a 20 page, bound, layflat, photo cover, thick page wedding album would be around $120 + $1.50/page. Seems like a pretty good deal and even better if you don't want to bind your wedding album!.
Hi Folks, you can quit reading now, all the good stuff is listed above! I'm offering up this section as a listing of some of the Do It Yourself wedding albums options I've seen out there. I've only been able to use some of them because many of the flush mount album companies charge a fortune for their books and that's not something I want to order just to check out the quality. I've listed as many coffee table style books and flush mount albums sites as I can think of and I've let off a few that I know I don't like or that were reviewed terribly, but have never made in into the knot lexicon. More "do it yourself" wedding album companies are popping up every year. Also, many of the traditional wedding album companies are starting to realize they're losing money by not dealing with couples directly. Hopefully the reviews of these coffee table wedding albums and flush mount wedding albums will point you in the right direction for your Michigan wedding. Most wedding albums are now very easy to make yourselves and they've kind of taken a lot of the need out to have a professional photographer do the work and that's fine by me! Thanks for checking my wedding album resource page and I hope you do click on some of the MI wedding album pages that I've supplied.
Michigan wedding photographer's guide to creating wedding photo albums and photo albums yourself