How to choose your Wedding photo book

If you're not satisfied in looking at your Wedding Photos only from a screen and don't want to give up in printing them on a Photobook, this article is for you!

Nowadays Photobooks are the most sought-after products for Wedding Photos: They're continuously updated in style and materials and their layouts make the usage more dynamic than a traditional Wedding Book.

There are a lot of products available on the market, but only few manufacturers can guarantee top quality level of all the features of a Photobook: style, innovation, materials, special finishing, paper types, printing, details and, most of all, their customization.
I choose very carefully my suppliers. Photobooks for my clients have to be of the same quality of the photographic service, so there's no place for compromise: IstantiSenzaTempo's couples just have the Best Wedding Photobooks and a dedicated support to design them.

Usually Wedding Photographers offer full packages that includes also a standard photobook. Don't trust this kind of offers: the cost of the Photobook is fixed, so It will be difficult for You to ask customization of the book or, if Your requests will be considered, they will have unexpected costs! Before signing a contract that includes a Photobook, think about it!
Keep reading this article in order to know all the features You can (and should) choose in a Photobook.

I believe Photobook isn't an ordinary container of photos. Indeed it is an evocative instrument telling Your Wedding and bringing out emotions every time You look, touch, browse it.
This is why your Wedding Photobook can't be an ordinary book, but it has to be fully customized and unique.
In order to make it happen, It must be a synergy among the couple, the photographer and the manufacturer.

How far can You go customizing Your Wedding Photobook? Here's a list of the features You can choose:

• Style (shape, page binding, cover and other details)
• Format: horizontal, square, vertical
• Size
• Box / Case
• Covering materials (both the book and the box / case) and their colors
• Printing paper
• Page thickness
• Page number
• Book edge color

Then You can choose:

• a custom graphic: one for the box / case, one for the book cover, inside the book
• special finishing for the exterior of the book and the box / case: laser engraving, colour overprinting, selective raised varnishing, embossing
• a dedicated layout of the pictures, intensifying the story making it elegant and fascinating

How can You choose the right Photobook for You? Follow these simple steps.

1. Format: start with the format that fits for You

The best format depends on the photos you choose to print: if most of them are landscape (wider than their heights), a landscape layout is more effective than others. But if you have more or less an equal number of landscape and portrait photos, a square format could be the best choice in order to give enough space to both kind of pictures in the final layout.

2. Style: pick the product You like most

Probably the previous choice limits the number of available Photobook models: now pick the one You like most. Surely You can see finished albums, but You have to imagine it as it was neutral, because You'll define further its character. Analyze shapes, page bindings and openings, ask the Photographer about the chance of using a specific material or special finishing and about a match with a box or a case.
While you're choosing your Wedding Photobook, let you be guided by your personal style and think about the spot you'll place it: It will represent You and Your souls, You should see it as an amazing object to live everyday, merged with your furniture and not closed in a drawer.

3. Match materials and colours

It's time to match one or more materials, even in different colours! For my experience, this is the hardest choice: at the beginning You'll feel lost in dozens materials' samples, but You'll limit the choice until You'll find the perfect match!
How can You turn a mission impossible into that perfect match? Remember Your Story, the best parts of Your Wedding Day, after a couple of attempts You'll find Your ideal Photobook and You'll ask yourselves how You couldn't think about it at the first moment!

4. Graphics and special finishing for the book and the box

From a blank cover of the book or the box, You can revolutionise their look with no boundaries: the limit will be only Your fantasy! The photobook cover — yes, even the spine and the back! — and the full box — exterior and interior — can be ennobled as a painter's canvas: You can print everything on it!
Have you a plain lifestyle and do You prefer just Your names and the Wedding date? Sure, but use fonts and colors from the invitations and stationery. Otherwise, you can choose an elegant laser engraving, a perfect match with leather and wood covering.
Are you a daring couple? Why not to use graphical elements from the stationery? Or We can create together a brand new custom graphic, ennobling the cover by colour overprinting and selective raised varnishing.
Do You want to go beyond? We can print a graphic on the whole book cover, from the front to the back, or on the box.
You can be helped by a rendering that simulates the materials, their colors and the graphical elements: It will be like you'll have the real book and the box just in front of you!

5. Paper: a choice capable of transform Your Wedding Book!

The paper on which you'll print your photos is another element of the Photobook that let you totally change the sensation infused by browsing it. A glossy paper enhances colors, has deep black and good contrast. A matte paper is more romantic and has no reflection: whites and blacks are very pleasant and color less saturated than glossy paper.
Other choices are: Tintoretto, smooth, pearl, metallic, photographic papers. Otherwise there are Fine Art papers in cellulose or cotton fiber, the state of the art: they don't need to be bleached by chlorine and they are the best paper for professional digital printing. This kind of printing lasts at least 300 years, color rendering is intense, contrast is perfect as gray shades in black and white photos. Last but not least, touching Fine Art papers gives warm and evocative sensations.

6. Precious details: the icing on the cake!

Some Photobook designs could be even more special coloring the edge of the book, that usually is white: You can change also this detail, if you want! Another customizable element is the color of the satin ribbon inside the box: obviously you can match it with other materials and graphical elements.
Finally You can beautify also the endpaper with materials, colors and graphical elements, always in order to have a really customized product.

For a successful completion of the Photobook design you can't miss a dedicated layout of Your Wedding Photos. Maybe I'll write about it in a further article, so stay tuned!

If you want, You can design a unique Photobook. A Photobook that represents you, tell Your Story and keep one of the most important memory of Your lives.