Frequently Asked Questions About Our Wedding Albums
Where do I start creating a wedding album?
First just some technical jargon to understand — we use the term “spread” when talking about an album page layout. A spread is made up of 2 pages – the left side and the right side when open. We talk in terms of spreads because we design to make sure the two opposing pages blend seamlessly together.
Most couples end up with an album around 30-40 spreads (60-80 pages) accommodating anywhere from 150-300 photos. We design as many pages as we think best tells the story of your wedding day from the photos supplied.
Even 10+ years designing albums, we still have a hard time knowing how many pages the album will be just by a number of photos.
Most couples send us hundreds of wedding album photos, so first we cull them down to around 300 photos first. Other couples just send us their selection of photos they want in the album. But without knowing what the photos are off or the breakdown of how many photos are from each part of the wedding day, it’s a hard question to answer how many photos or pages do we need.
We break the album design down into sections of the day rather than a number of photos. Hopefully, this might help give you a better understanding of how big your album might end up. Keep in mind you may not have photos or not want certain sections of the day in the album so please disregard pages for that section.
Generally, we don’t mix photos from the different events/parts of the day because the colour tones of the photos don’t work together, either because they are in different locations or different lighting situations.
The first draft is then sent to you to proof. Through our easy online proofing process, you get to review the design and make any necessary changes. This way all the important photos make the design as well as keeping within your budget.
Changes can include swapping, moving, removing or adding photos as well as removing or adding entire pages or spreads. We find most couples usually need 2-3 rounds of revisions to get the album design to the point they are happy with the design and also works within their budget.
After each revision, we will give you an update of where you are at with the number of extra spreads and a chance to proof the revised design.
A wedding album is an investment and it’s more important to us that you are happy with the final result, as its an heirloom you will have for a lifetime.
What is the best size for a wedding album?
The most popular album for wedding photos is our 14×11″ landscape album with the 12×12″ square album running in a close second. However, over recent years our 11×14″ & 9×12″ portrait/vertical albums are increasingly popular for their magazine editorial aesthetic.
With these large albums, you can really let your favourite photos be showstoppers. The large page size easily allows for multiple images on the page without them appearing too tiny. Both sizes work with landscape and portrait images equally. From full page images to double-page spreads, the large wedding album truly is a work of art.
For those couples looking for an album thats not quite so big or more suited to be left on the coffee table, then our 12×9″ landscape or 10×10″ square are a great modern option.
What album cover options are available?
Choose from these popular photo album materials:
- premium leather
- classic leather
- luxurious linen fabric
- elegant silk book cloth
- soft velvet
- printed designs
- photo-wrap
All album covers have endless customisation options through personalisation and assortment of materials and colours.
I'm not sure what cover or material I want!
It can be overwhelming to decide on a cover material and colour when there’s so many gorgeous options! Typically the style of your wedding or colour schemes will help guide the direction of the album cover. For example, a wedding that features a natural toned aesthetic will direct you to a natural colour in a natural textured material like our linen and silk materials. Or another example, with a deep red themed wedding will direct you to album cover either in a deep red or burgundy fabric or leather cover.
We are also happy to provide suggestions on what would work well with your wedding photos, and happy to provide mockups of some album cover designs to help guide you in your selection.
You are welcome to change your mind on the material choices right up until the album is approved and ready for print. Once it’s out for print, you won’t be able to make any further changes or customisations, so trust your gut!
How many pages can I have in my Album?
The albums come standard with 20 pages (10 spreads), accommodating around 100 – 150 images. The maximum number of pages is 90 pages (45 spreads) with extra spread starting at $50/spread upto $70/spread. If you would like to add more pages to your album, we typically work through this during the design and review process.
How many pages will we need in our wedding album?
The wedding albums come standard with 20 pages (10 spreads). This is a starting point as all weddings are different. The maximum number of pages is 90 pages (45 spreads).
Typically most albums end up around 60-80 pages (30-40 spreads). Images are placed in the album in the logical order of events of the day.
If you are unsure of how many pages your wedding album should have, during the design process we will create the first draft design for you with as many pages as we think your album needs. This is where you are welcome to add/delete images and remove/add pages. Your wedding album comes with 3 rounds of changes to make sure everything is perfect before we send it off to print.
How many photos can I include in my album?
As many as you like! However, we do recommend allowing the pages to have some breathing room (use of white space) so each and every photo has the chance to shine! We suggest having no more the 6 images on most of the pages. In saying that, congratulations, guest candid and reception pages for dance floor photos, tend to look better with more images on the page to showcase the fun being had and away to feature all your favourite people.
What pictures should I include in my wedding album?
Below is a rough guide for what wedding album photos should be included based on the chronological order of the wedding day events and estimated number of pages required for each.
Title Page – 1 feature photo with your names, venue and wedding date (1 spread)
Groom Getting Ready & Photos with the Groomsmen and Parents – 25 to 30 photos (4-5 spreads)
Bride Getting Ready & Photos with the Bridesmaids and Parents – 30 to 50 photos (5-7 spreads)
Ceremony including Congratulation Hugs – 30 to 60 photos (5-8 spreads)
Family Portraits & Group Photo – 10 to 20 photos (3-5 spreads)
Wedding Party Photoshoot – 30 to 50 (6-8 spreads)
Reception – 30 to 80 photos (5-10 spreads)
What is the paper quality in the album?
The paper used in our albums is a premium fine art matt paper with a smooth ivory surface. A lustre paper stock is available upon request.
A pure, bright finish and neutral white tone, giving colours a clean, natural look—perfect if you love a crisp, fresh style.
The luxurious pages are 230gsm thick, ensuring the sturdiness of the pages so they forever remain flat and do not warp. Once the two sides of the paper are glued together, create a 1.2mm thick double-sided page that can’t bend or be folded.
The album uses the best paper grade for printing ensuring your wedding album stands the test of time. The smooth surface provides pin-sharp details with great colour consistency. This exceptional photographic paper is acid-free and complies with the highest lifespan requirements.
I don't know which images to include...I love them all! Can you help me?
Don’t worry, we have close to 20 years experience specialising in wedding album design and backed by 12 years as a professional wedding photographer. To make it easier for you, our photo curation service which is included with every album helps us filter the images down to a more manageable quantity to start the design. During the review process, you can add, delete or swap images until you’re 100% happy!
Will you edit my photos for my wedding album?
Refer to our answer on using professional photography and statement about Copyright.
Generally no we cannot edit your photos due to the binding contract between you and your photographer.
To elaborate, we don’t include editing as part of the design process because we work with couples that mostly use professional photographers and the photos are already edited to the photographers style.
Most photographers have a contract with the couple that stipulates how the images can be used as well as edited, which relates to copyright law and usually means we cannot edit the photographer’s images.
In cases where there is no contract, we can edit the images. Some images need more editing than others depending on what issues need to be corrected. For example whether its basic overall exposure or colour balance issues or more advanced retouching like removing skin blemishes/spots, smoothing skin texture, etc and then how many images need editing.
If photo editing is required, we will need to provide a quote. This is usually done once we have designed the album and its been approved for print. This way we know exactly what images and how many images need editing, and you only pay for editing to the images that appear in the album.
Do our wedding photos need to be taken by a professional photographer?
Generally most of the wedding albums we create are using photos captured by a professional photographer. Read the article on Why We Recommend Hiring a Professional Wedding Photographer.
Can you use our professional photos to create a wedding album?
The simple answer is Yes.
Its important to understand who owns copyright of your images prior to booking a photographer for your wedding. In short, the Australian Copyright Council automatically assign copyright for domestic photography, including weddings and family portraiture, to the client or you in this case. Where no contract is signed between the client and the photographer, the copyright belongs with the client (you).
However, if the client (you) enter into a contract with the photographer, in most cases the photographer will ‘reassign’ copyright to them (the photographer). However, when they are asking you to sign over copyright, they do need to clearly advise you they are writing this into the contract and use the correct terminology of “reassigning” or “transferring” the copyright for the contract to be legally binding.
Disclaimer: We are not lawyers so it is always advised to seek legal advice when signing a contract.
To avoid complicating the situation, even when the photographer reassigns copyright to them, you as the client still have personal-use rights. What that means is, you have permission to reproduce/print the images for your own personal use. For example, it’s okay for us to use your wedding photos to create an album.
IMPORTANT: Depending on the terms in the contract, the photographer may have clauses referring to the editing, usually related to editing, and that the photos CANNOT be edited by another party.
It is your responsibility to let us know any specifics in terms of use around the photos you are supplying us. If in doubt, refer back to your wedding photography contract. In the case there is no contract, as mentioned above the client (you) own copyright and can use/edit the photographs in any way you wish. For more information on Australian Copyright Legislation refer to the Australian Copyright Council website.
Can we include photos not taken by our professional wedding photographer?
Sometimes couples want to include other photos taken by friends in their album. This comes with a maybe. Whether we can use the photos depends on the device the images were taken with, file size and quality of the image.
From past experience, we haven’t been able to use these kinds of images as they were taken on older mobile photos and the quality just wasn’t good enough to print.
Things to consider when using other (non-professional) photos in your album — a photo taken on another device, in a different format, by a different person or in different lighting is going to look a whole lot different to your professionally edited wedding photos. Therefore the photos won’t blend or sit nicely on the page alongside your professional wedding photos. In fact the other non-professional photo/s will stand out like a sore thumb!
For these reasons, we don’t recommend using non-professional images in your wedding album.
If you really can’t leave the non-professional images out of your album, then we wouldn’t mix the images together on one page because style, lighting and quality need to be uniform for the page design to look good. We would suggest dedicating a full spread to keeping all these obviously sentimental photos on the same page that way they don’t interrupt the flow of your professional images.
Keep in mind, the non-professional images will mostly likely have limitations when it comes to editing. Images captured in jpg format as most phones and amateur photographer camera setups, the less you can edit the photos. The more you edit a photo the more it deteriorates the quality too.
It’s also not possible to make images captured on other cameras match the professional photographer’s images, no matter how much editing is done, different devices give different results in colours and every photographer edits differently, so the images can never be matched exactly. It really is a case of we need to see the images to properly answer this question.
Can we include our photobooth and dispensable camera photos in the album?
Adding photobooth and dispensable camera photos are a really fun idea. If you have them in digital format, we can include them in the design of the album. However if you have hard copy prints, we can allow a few extra blank pages at the back of the album for you to add these images in either using photo corners or an appropriate photo adhesive. We do not recommend mixing these photos with the “professional” photos as the colours will be different and won’t work well together.
How do I send my images to you?
Super Easy. We do require high resolution .jpg files for printing purposes.
Simply share your online photo gallery with us and we will download them our end. We accept files via any online service (ie. Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) or the online gallery your photographer supplied so long as they are high-resolution digital images. Just share the link plus the password or download PIN if necessary with us via email. For Australian residents, alternatively post a copy of your digital files on a USB. If posting us a USB, on receipt of your order we will provide details on how to supply your images.
Will my photos look different when printed on paper to how I see the photos on my screen?
Yes, images will appear different. Images when viewed on a computer monitor or mobile phone screen will appear brighter even glossy-like because the monitor/screen is luminous, reflective and back-lit in comparison to printed photos which have a flat matte finish.
Will I see a draft of the album before it goes to print?
Yes absolutely! We will send you a digital proof as soon as the first draft is ready. Through our convenient online review system, you are welcome to add, delete or change images. This is where you’ll be able to add comments directly to the pages and let us know the changes you would like! We include 3 rounds of changes in the price of your album. Additional rounds are $85 per round.
Do you ship Australia wide and internationally?
Shipping within Australia and internationally is included in the price of the album.
How long will it take to receive my album?
Please allow 10-15 business days to receive the first draft.
From approval of your design, the album will take up to 3-4 weeks to be printed, bound and delivered.
Because the timeline of receiving the final album is also dependent on you reviewing the design, we cannot provide an exact timeframe. But the less back-and-forth with changes, the quicker the process will be.
Do you offer a priority or rush service for your albums?
No. We can’t offer a rush service on our wedding albums. Due to the nature of the album manufacture process and labour that goes into handcrafting the albums, we cannot speed up the process, therefore we do not offer a priority or faster service.
How do I care for my album?
To ensure the longevity of your album, it is best to:
- keep your album out of direct sunlight
- store your album in a non-humid, cool, temperate place
- store your album flat
- keep sticky fingers away from your album pages (albums come with white gloves to assist).
How long do you keep the album design on file incase we'd like to print another copy?
For your peace of mind, we keep your photos and album design artwork backed up in our archives indefinitely, so should you ever need to have another copy printed for whatever reason, we have access to your photos and original artwork. We do offer discounted prices for extra copies – please enquire.
Is there a discount for parent albums?
Yes, parent albums are priced at a discounted rate as they are essentially smaller replicas (same orientation and photo selection) of your wedding album. This means you will not need to pay for the design again. Due to this, parent albums can only be ordered in conjunction with your wedding album.
Do you offer returns?
As your album is custom made to order, we don’t give refunds.
Prior to finalising your album design and sending it off to be printed, you’ll have multiple revision rounds to ensure you are 100% happy with your album.
We quality check all albums before leaving the studio. In the rare instant your album is damaged in the post or there is a mistake in the album due to an oversight/error (something that you did not approve), then we will replace your album for free, at no additional cost.
Do you offer refunds?
The album design process begins as soon as your non-refundable album deposit is paid. From selecting and curating images and designing the layout, a lot of time and energy is committed to creating your wedding album behind the scenes. Therefore, the deposit is non refundable. The final payment of your album and any approved extra pages or finishes is due on approval of design and before the print and binding process begins, which is also non refundable once paid.
Can your photo albums be used for other types of photography besides weddings?
Yes. Our hardcover albums are perfect for printing any photography or event. What a great way to remember your engagement photos, elopement, and family photos. We can design any type of family photo album including maternity, newborn, baby photos, graduations and even albums for your furry family members.
Albums also make great gifts – family albums are perfect for a Mother’s/Father’s Day or Christmas gift, celebrating Valentine’s Day or a special anniversary.