Which photos You should choose for Your Wedding Photobook

Superficially, creating a Wedding Photobook layout is a quick and easy work. Actually, it is time consuming and requires concentration in order to tell a coherent and exciting Wedding story. In this article I don't teach You about how to make a Photobook layout — Your photographer should know how to do it — but which photos You should choose for it.

First of all, You have to know that it's difficult to print all Your Wedding pictures in a photobook. If I will be Your photographer, You'll have around 300 digital photos; once you decide to print them all, You'll have two options:

• have a book with several pages: the book will be expensive, heavy and probably unaesthetic
• have a book with the right number of pages, but with tiny pictures

Usually I ask couples to choose photos They like the most to be included in their photobook. Then I suggest some integrations or changes. As a matter of fact, only while I'm designing the book layout I'm able to suggest them.

My favourite background color is white: it draws attention to the pictures, lightens the layout and is suitable for a Wedding Photobook. The uniform white background has another plus point: it allows every picture to have its own space. So, the layout artist — your photographer — can fill every double-page spread with an orderly arrangement of photos. Obviously your Photographer has to be open minded: since it's just a matter of taste, there is always place to exceptions to these "rules". Feel free to ask me anything but strange transitions between pictures or unnatural photomontage!
Moreover, keep in mind that:

• the layout will be coherent with the book format (square, panoramic or vertical)
• the photos, originally with 3:2 aspect ratio, could be modified for the benefit of the storytelling: for example, if I arrange a single picture on a double-page spread of a panoramic book, I have to cut the upper and lower part of that picture, but I'll obtain an outstandig effect!

Nonetheless, the first step is the most important: the choice of the pictures. While You'll do it, keep always in mind that You want to tell a story: a good, complete and engaging story tells not only about main characters, but also about supporting, background actors, scenic designs, details. A consisent succession of all these elements can make a difference from a well-told story and an insignificant one.
While choosing pictures you can't miss these photos, in order to give a wide breath to Your story and to keep a complete memory of Your Wedding Day.
Don't pick instead posed group photos: in spite of my style is photojournalism, sometimes someone asks me posed pictures and obviously I shoot them. But this kind of pictures clash with candid ones, so is better to avoid mixing them.

While I'm designing the photobook layout I need to re-edit some pictures already edited, from black and white to color or vice versa. Remember, we're telling a story, so we need harmony in the single spread and in the whole book. I suggest You to seriously consider a full layout or in color or in black and white: You will see it also in the following layout, all in color and with the same editing from the first to the last page.

A real layout is worth a thousand words! From Veronica and Patrizio Wedding, one of the best layout I ever made: 92 photos in 62 pages (31 spreads), enough to tell the Wedding Day with large spaces. This book was printed in 35x25cm (13,8"x9,8") panoramic format so every spread is 70x25cm (27,6"x9,8"): it's really huge when opened and let You enjoy your pictures very much! Browse the slideshow taking account that the grey borders aren't printed: You need them just to see the page boundary.

And this is the real photobook: