DIY Wedding Albums

Look at me! After all this time, posting something back over here at Road to the Aisle. But I figure this is definitely wedding related, and since it's yet another DIY project, it's only fitting that it be posted over here, as well as on my current blog, Heather Drive.

Back at Christmas, I mentioned how we had given our parents wedding albums for gifts. I promised to take photos of the pages and post a full review.

Well, 4+ months later, here I am, and I'm finally doing what I said I'd do. I stole my mom's album for the weekend and took photos of it for all of you to see.

We had the albums made from Mpix.com. They are their "Assembled Albums," and we chose the 8" x 10" size, with 40 pages. The cover is black leather, and it is quite beautiful, and very sturdy.

We had our names and the date foil stamped on the cover. This cost a little bit extra, but we thought it was worth it.

I designed all of the pages myself, using Photoshop. I created a separate Photoshop document for each page using the specifications (measurements) from Mpix. From there, I pretty much had complete creative freedom.

The photo pages are mounted onto the album pages leaving a 1/16" border around the edges. If you decide to do collage pages like I did, you can make your background any color you want. I decided to keep it kind of classic-looking, and made my backgrounds black. I added a thin white border around all of the photos to give it a more finished look.

We did a couple of black-and-white spreads, too.

Mpix doesn't offer any templates, so this was all me. I experimented with different sizes with the photos, different crops, different positioning. Once I found combinations that worked, I repeated them on several pages, sometimes just changing them slightly. Above, you see that the templates on these pages are simply mirror images of each other.

For the groomsmen and bridesmaid pages, I decided to add a little text. Our parents didn't know all of the bridesmaids and groomsmen prior to the wedding, but everyone got along really well. I wanted them to be able to remember the names of everyone in the bridal party, so we had these pages that included a photo of each of the groomsmen and bridesmaids separately, with their names underneath. They came out really well.

Our parents' albums were slightly different from each other. Some pages were identical in both albums, but we swapped out some of the family photos. For instance, above, you see a page with photos of my parents and me. In Michael's parents' book, that page contained photos of him with his parents.

I love that the pages lie flat when you're flipping through them.

On the right, I cropped the photo to be 8" x 10" size, and uploaded it as it was so that it took up the entire page.

One limitation to these albums (as compared to some others) is that you cannot span a photo across both pages (as a two-page spread). If I had that option, I probably would have done it for the photo of our bridal party in the field.

The page on the right is one of my favorites. Our photographers had taken a photo of us dancing from an angle that included a lot of the floor in the shot. I cropped the photo to fit to the full 8" x 10" page, then layered smaller photos over the top of it (over the dance floor). I just loved how it turned out.

We had to have a full spread dedicated to the toast. SO. MANY. AWESOME. TOAST. PHOTOS. It was so hard to narrow them down.

This is another one of my favorite spreads. Love the huge full-page photo of the cake!

For the reception, I ended up using a lot of smaller photos. We had so many good ones, and we decided we would rather use more photos at a smaller size than have to narrow them down and use less of them at larger sizes. These turned out to be some of my favorite pages, simply because they are so filled with FUN.

Last page, with the back cover.

Here is a close-up of one of one of the pages with a full-page photo. You can easily see the 1/16" black border that they leave around each page. The photos are mounted onto the album pages really well.

Here is another photo of one of the corners. I wanted to show you what one of the pages looked like that had the black background.

We are extremely happy with how these turned out, and couldn't be more pleased with Mpix. These albums are a bit pricey--definitely more than you'd pay should you decide to use Blurb, My Publisher, etc. But the quality, in my opinion, far surpasses that of the other companies. These are professional albums, and if you look at it that way, the prices aren't bad at all.

They were delivered to us really quickly, too. Once I uploaded the pages and submitted our order, I want to say they were on our doorstep less than a week later. I think they generally process and ship orders within 24-48 hours.

Disadvantages to these albums? Well, the biggest one is that you kind of have to know what you are doing. Experience with design and layout certainly helps, especially when you have to be mindful of leaving space around the edges for trimming. As I mentioned before, Mpix doesn't provide any templates, so you have to start from scratch on your own. For some people, that's a huge advantage--total freedom to do what they want with every page--but for others, it's a disadvantage because it is wayyy more work.

We plan to eventually make an album like this with our honeymoon photos. I just have to find the time! For our parent albums, we had a reason to get them done quickly--I had a deadline! But it was all very time-consuming. I spent the better part of a WEEK in front of the computer designing pages.

In the end, it was completely worth it. Before we gave them to our parents, I was flipping through them myself several times a day. They're beautiful, and the quality of the photos is fantastic. I have no doubt that these albums will stand the test of time, and will be something our parents will be able to share with people for years to come.

If you have any questions about the albums, please let me know in the comments. Be sure to check back, because that's where I'll answer the questions as well. I have already answered a bunch of questions about this over on my other blog, so please take a look there.

Trash the Dress - The Beach

Our first location probably ate up 2.5-3 hours of time.

The entire time (no lie) we were inside of the brick factory, I had to pee sooo badly. Seriously, every time we moved or I had to get into different positions, I was dying. And I felt so bad for Judy and Darsi because they had to put up with me complaining about it. I tried not to be too annoying, but my god, it was torture. And hey, I still did everything they asked. Well, until the end of location #1.

The original plan was to spend some time around and/or in the ponds surrounding the brick factory, but there were no restrooms available and there was no possible way I could wait any longer. So they took me to the nearest Wendy's.

(I can't even tell you how funny I felt walking in there. Here I am, wearing a wedding dress with a zip-up sweatshirt over it, with like an inch of makeup on my face. Walking into Wendy's. I'm convinced customers thought I was some kind of hooker. But I digress.)

After the bathroom break, Judy and Darsi decided that since we were already in the car, there was no point in going back to the brick factory. Instead, we'd take a detour and go to a completely different location--the beach.

Oddly enough, the beach seemed to be at least 5 degrees warmer in temperature. In the brick factory, I was freezing. On the beach? It was cold, but not as cold.


It was a lot more comfortable, too. Lying in nice, cushy sand (as opposed to brick walls, beams, and scrap metal)? No problem.

As I was lying in the sand to get shots like the above, I saw something coming toward me out of the corner of my eye. I look, and there is this dog, running down the beach at full speed, coming right at me. Behind her, her owner, screaming, "Tasha! Tasha!!" and then, to us, "WATCH OUT! She's going to try to kiss youuuuu!!!"

Too late. I had time to sit up, thankfully, but there Tasha was, jumping up on me and kissing my face. After she attacked me with her tongue, Darsi got the brunt of it. She was trying to speak (or scream) or something when the dog jumped up on her and managed to french kiss her a bit. No, I'm not kidding.

It was hilarious. All of us were laughing, and Judy kept snapping. Eventually, Tasha's owner caught up to her and managed to get her attention to call her back. She apologized profusely.

Still laughing.

And then? Tasha decided to turn around to come back for Round 2. Here is my "OH NO!" look. But Tasha's second attempt was thwarted as her owner managed to wrangle her.

And then I had the giggles. Could not stop laughing at the replay in my head.

OK. Back to business.

An old lifeguard shelter on the beach. The weathered steps were very cool. And whoops, I just noticed you can see my flip flops in this shot. I'm surprised Judy didn't photoshop them out. I guess maybe they add to it since it's the beach? :)

Then we moved right down near the water.

I like this one.

Putting an old lifeguard stand to good use. Bride--to the rescue!

Time for a little nap.

If everything had gone according to plan, I would have actually gotten into the water after this. But in the end, we all agreed that it was too cold (I'm pretty convinced I would have come out with hypothermia).

I'm actually really glad that I didn't get in the water. I don't think my dress would have been ruined or anything like that, but it would have been a bigger pain in the ass to haul home and take care of.

Now, I'm just trying to decide what to do with my dress. I need to get it cleaned, but am not sure whether I should go with a local place (can't find any recommendations!) or ship it off to Wed Clean. I need to figure it out soon, given that my dress is currently hanging in the entryway of our house. What to do, what to do...

Trash the Dress - Brick Factory

Over the weekend, I got my trash the dress photos back from the photographer. Some pretty cool shots. I'm glad I did it, just for fun. Not sure I'll actually ever do anything with any of these pictures (aside from showing them to all of you), so I'm also kind of glad it wasn't something I actually paid for.

Anyway, I got more than 600 photos back--it was insane to try to look through them all. They've been narrowed down, but I'm still going to split them into two posts for the two locations--first for the abandoned brick factory, and then for the beach.

The brick factory was such a cool location. Every time we took another couple of steps, Judy found yet another goldmine in terms of backdrops.



Umm, yeah. With this one? I was definitely afraid that old green door (that was merely balancing on a pile of scrap metal) was going to fall and cause me to land on my head. That would have made an interesting trip to the emergency room. But alas, I stayed safe. And my boobs stayed in place, too. Praise the lord.

Rickety old catwalks, all still standing. Pretty amazing.

Cold beam. COLD.

These shots with the broken down brick wall are some of my favorites of the day.

An old red chair that just happened to be sitting there. You honestly could not have set up things this cool.

This last one was clearly an old manager's office or something. All of the drywall was broken off and/or deteriorated, but there was still old office furniture up there.

I will post the beach ones later...

Trash the Dress - Preview

Well, we didn't really trash the dress. As Judy, the photographer, said--it was more like "celebrate" the dress. And we did.

Judy just e-mailed me with some preview photos. Weeeee! She made sure to say, "These aren't even some of the best ones... I figured I'd save those for later." So now I'm really curious as to what they all look like. But I'll share the teasers with you. Photos are copyright of Judy Cormier at Elementz of Fotographie.

To tell you a little bit about the shoot as I take you through the pics...

It was a lot of fun. When I got there, Judy had a makeup artist ready to do my makeup for the shoot. Judy wanted it to be dramatic, so that's what she did. It was pretty funny to catch glimpses of myself in a mirror now and then. I don't wear a lot of makeup so it was like I wasn't even looking at myself.

We started off in an old, abandoned brick factory in Toronto. We sorta had to sneak in through an opening in a fence--which was a challenge in a wedding dress--and down this short, steep hill into a makeshift entrance at one of the corners of the building. As soon as Darsi (Judy's assistant) stuck her head inside, she was like "Oh my god!!" (Judy and Darsi had never actually been inside before. They had only heard it was cool.) At first, I didn't know if that reaction was a good or bad thing. As it turned out, it was good.

There was graffiti everywhere, which made for some interesting backdrops. All of the catwalks and kilns and such were all still standing, so I was all over the place in there for different poses.

At one point, when I was up on the catwalk, something happened to catch my eye on the far wall. Someone had actually spray painted "TRASH THE DRESS" in big red letters. So apparently we weren't the first dress trashers to ever be in the brick factory. But of course we had to stop and take a few photos in front of it. Can't let a perfect backdrop like that go to waste.

They also played around a bit, using a video light and a grate/cage looking door. These ones are actually sorta dark (almost creepy!) looking. Very non-bridal. I like it.

Then I went down into one of the kilns (they were long and hallway-like), and she asked me to run. From an axe murderer. OK, she didn't say that, but doesn't it look like I'm maybe in some horror movie?

I think this next shot is from Judy's favorite location/pose of the day. Also in one of the kilns. The brick factory had these skylights all throughout, and in these shots, Judy used the natural light coming down from them.

I'll recap the rest later this week/next week when I have the rest of the photos. I think some of the stories will make more sense that way.

Cool

One of the locations today for my trash the dress shoot. I will do a better recap later but it was a fun experience. Hopefully will have some preview photos soon!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Trash it.

So, I am trashing the dress. This Saturday.

For those of you unfamiliar with this trend, I encourage you to visit trashthedress.com, or to Google it. Many, many photographers and former brides are doing fabulous things with these types of photo shoots.

Here is a YouTube video:


Me? Well, I'm only doing it because I don't have to pay for it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to justify spending the money on more pictures of myself in my wedding dress.

Several months back, before I even got married, a photographer in Toronto put a notice on her blog that she was looking for brides to photograph for an artistic series she is doing. I sent an e-mail with my photo, and I heard back from her right away, saying she wanted to photograph me. All summer, I waited to hear from her to schedule the shoot, and I started to wonder whether it was actually going to happen. A couple of weeks ago, she e-mailed me to try to set up something for fall.

And so I will go on Saturday, drive up to Toronto to be a model for 6-8 hours. Actually sounds pretty fun, right? I'm excited to see how things come about. She has shared some of her plans for locations, and it sounds like it could be pretty amazing.

When all is said and done, I get all of the high-res photos on DVD, so it's a nice deal. I model for free, but have the benefit of getting to wear my dress one more time, and also get the photos.

I'm a little bit anxious about what will happen with my dress. I haven't had it professionally cleaned yet, so I plan to do so shortly after this shoot. While there is part of me that doesn't care about the dress--not ever going to wear it again, it wasn't that expensive, etc.--there is also part of me that definitely doesn't want it RUINED. From what I hear from other "trash the dress" brides, they actually do come clean. So here's hoping. Also, I talked to my mom over the weekend, and she mentioned that my dress is already looking pretty trashed as it is. It got pretty filthy at my reception, and I guess that over time, the stains have become more and more noticeable. Luckily, the photographer said this isn't a problem--most spots probably won't even show in the photos, and if they do, they can be photoshopped out.

So stay tuned... I'm definitely going to be sharing photos here once I get them back. (I'm thinking it could be a while since I'm not a paying client--these are photos she is doing for her own portfolio/show piece, and I'm sure editing them will get pushed to the bottom of her priorities for a while!)

In the meantime, if you did a trash the dress session... leave a link to your photos in the comments in you have them up somewhere. I'd love to see them, and maybe some of the people who still visit this blog would, too. :)

Reflection

Recently, at work, I showed our wedding pictures to some of the ladies I now share office space with. From there, we got into a conversation regarding decisions made for our weddings--what we were so happy we did, and what we wish we would have done differently.

Since then, I've been thinking about things like that, and I figured I might as well write them down and share them with all of you, since many of you are still planning. So I'll get right to it.

I'm SO glad we:

1. Ended up hiring a videographer. We originally weren't planning on having one, but about three months before the wedding, I started freaking out that maybe we would regret it. After a bit of discussion, we decided to look around for one.

We hired one a short time later, and we are so glad that we did. There are so many things that I would have been devastated to never get to see/hear again (i.e. our fabulous toasts given by Lindsay and Justin). And there were many things I didn't see on the wedding day that were captured by the videographer (i.e. Michael's grandmother dancing up a storm).

If you're wavering on this decision, I'm telling you... DO IT. If you've decided against having one, I urge you to reconsider.

2. Planned it so that we would NOT miss our cocktail hour. We owe some of the credit to our photographers, who were extremely efficient taking pictures between the ceremony and reception. We said from the very beginning of our planning that we DEFINITELY wanted to be at our cocktail hour. Our thought was, we're paying so much money to throw this party--we want to be there to enjoy every single minute of it. And we did! The Krackes got us there on time (we may have even been a few minutes early!).

We had that extra time to walk around and relax, mingle with guests, enjoy drinks, etc. I also had a few minutes to go in the bathroom and have a friend fix my hair, have Lindsay assist me with going to the bathroom, etc. :) It was a great decision.

3. Involved our families so much in the wedding. Both of my parents walked me down the aisle, and I'm so glad that I made the decision to do it that way.

My brothers were groomsmen; Michael's sisters were bridesmaids. We were SO happy to have our siblings with us every step of the way. Although, I am misleading you... I act like this was a conscious decision we made. It wasn't. From the very beginning, it was never a question. Even before we were engaged, I always knew that when Michael and I got married, my brothers would be groomsmen and his sisters bridesmaids. It was a given.

We always looked at it like the entire bridal party was ours. I would never have chosen anybody to be a bridesmaid that Michael disapproved of, and vice versa. I hate reading on The Knot when a bride says she excluded the groom's sister, or that her groom is excluding her brother, because "I'm not that close to her" or "It's his side so he can choose who he wants; he doesn't want my brother." I'm sorry, but that is bullshit. That's your future husband's sister, and unless she's a crackwhore or an uber bitch that your fiance doesn't even talk to, she belongs in your wedding party. Period. And if your fiance is excluding your brother and you want him to be in it... you need to speak up. It's family.

We also chose family members to do readings. Michael's uncle, my cousin, my brother's girlfriend (who is now his fiancee). Great, great decisions. No matter what happens in life, these people will always be our family.

4. Chose to do a sweetheart table. Sitting down quietly to dinner with just my new husband was a fabulous part of the evening. We were able to have a few minutes just to ourselves, and we had fun chatting together for that time. The day goes by in a huge blur, and much of it was spent apart (as silly as that is). I'm glad we at least had that time together. Plus we got to do a little trash talking about the no-show guests!! :)

5. Listened to the recommendations of professionals. The big one that comes to mind is our florist. I went into the florist meetings with an open mind because I wasn't quite sure what color flowers to pick for the aqua blue bridesmaid dresses we picked out. When she first suggested hot pink and orange, I thought to myself--gross. I even said to her, "I like the idea of the hot pink, but I am not sold on the orange." She asked me to trust her and I did.

The ladies at work said they would have vetoed her, and said what a shame that would have been. They would have missed out on a BEAUTIFUL color combination! I loved the way the hot pink and orange popped against the aqua blue. Fantastic.

6. Had a morning after brunch, and waited until the Monday after the wedding to leave for the honeymoon. It was nice to get an opportunity to see a lot of our guests again the next morning. Everyone was still on a high from the fun of the night before, and we got to reminisce about things while they were still fresh in our minds.

But man, were we exhausted. I'm not sure I have ever been so tired in my life! We really needed a day at home to recoup and regroup before we left for our honeymoon in Hawaii.

Speaking of Hawaii...

7. Splurged and went to Hawaii. It was amazing, and we're not sure when we'll have another opportunity to 1) take that long of a vacation, and 2) spend that much money on one. We're looking at kids in the next few years, and once that happens, lord knows we likely won't have the chance to go again until several years down the road.

I think that's it for now... if I think of anything more, I will put together a "Reflection: Part 2" post! As for things we wish we didn't do... I honestly can't think of anything. I don't think we have any regrets.

I hope this "advice" helps people. Good luck!