SHP has a love for all things digital, and we love sharing our images on our blog, Instagram, and Facebook as well as online galleries that are easily accessible on personal devices; however, some things are just more satisfying than that- like seeing our work in print!! (*Drooling*) That’s why we have the goal of making sure every client from now on gets a wedding album It’s THAT important to us.

Going through images on the computer and being able to share them on social media is super fun, especially when they get a bunch of likes, but it’s forgotten about after we keep scrolling and are onto the next epic image someone else uploaded! I mean, how long is Facebook or Instagram going to be around!? When that’s gone what will we have to show? When USB drives are gone how will we share our love stories? Ok, ok, I know. I’m tugging at your heartstrings, and I’ve made my point! I’m almost done! Viewing images online doesn’t allow for the personal interaction and conversation that tangible printed images invite. A printed album, especially like the ones we offer, is a showstopper when sharing with special guests you welcome into your home. It is also a valuable heirloom to cherish and pass down through generations. Seriously. Imagine showing your grandchildren your album while you’re sitting in your flying car! So crazy!

To keep it simple up front, we offer our couples two different sizes of albums – a 10×10 and an 8×12. Both are reasonably sized, impactful and very customizable. However, we do provide smaller photo books that can be discussed and chosen from, depending on the intention of the album. We’ve seen our couples design albums for their parents, grandparents, aunts, maid of honor, and even guest books made from our engagement session with them. So cool! These albums are typically smaller and called “books”. “Books” are a little different than albums because the pages are separated at the spine and images will not span across the seam of the pages when opened.

We like to pre-design our albums to get the process started, and we aim to make it painless for everyone involved! Although we pre-design for our couples, they can participate in the creation of their album to any degree they’d like, but we want to take the pressure off and use our professional skillz to lead the way! Our couples could, in theory, pick all of the images if they wanted but from our experience when allowing couples to do that, it can be very an overwhelming and time-consuming task! (Like they totally ghost us!) Imagine having to pick 60-100 favorites from your gallery when you just love them all! Seems impossible right? (It kind of is! It took me 2 years to create MY wedding album!!) We remove any possible stress by creating their story for them! Of course, there are revisions afterward. Because, who knows, we may have picked your distant cousin’s “plus one” killing it on the dance floor with awesome DJ lights and a funny hat they borrowed from the photo booth! And you’re over there thinking “they definitely don’t deserve real estate in my wedding album!” So we swap out images! Continuing on with the endless options that I really don’t want to overwhelm you too much with are;

• Album cover/spine material (leather, fabric, etc.)
• The stitching color that binds the album together
• Cover photo(s)
• Embossing
• Foil stamping – And the list goes on for.ev.er..!

Before we get to the good stuff – the photo proof- We have a little more 411! SHP wedding albums have thick, lay-flat pages that allow the images to span across the seam without compromising the image at all! As you’ll see in the photos we’ve shared below, the albums are substantial and look awesome when left open on a coffee table. We believe that creating a wedding day album is essential to immortalizing such an epic day, so we’ve set out to focus on featuring them here on the blog more. So, below are some images that highlight the variety of the heirloom albums, including sizes, stitching, and cover choices!

We hope this clears things up for anyone that’s on the fence about turning their digital galleries into tangible, beautifully printed albums. If any of our past couples find that this post is giving them serious FOMO, get at us asap!

Now on to the photo proof! First we have our heirloom album from all the angles. As you can see, the images can span across the spread for really impactful design layouts!

Above is an example of a guest “book”. As you can see the pages are clearly separated in the middle of the spread. Above are examples of parent “books”.