Your wedding album will house all the moments you captured on your special day. It’s the perfect opportunity to create a sentimental keepsake of the day and have something to show those who couldn’t make it and your future family. Many people opt to put the album together themselves to save spending any unnecessary money and the task isn’t too difficult.

To help you out in this process we’ve put together a list of six important tips for designing the perfect wedding album:

Organize your photos

First things first, it’s important to organize your images. Some people like to order them chronologically and also organize any captions, stickers or stamps that go with the corresponding moment. One idea could be the photos of when the groomsmen exchange gifts before the wedding, these might be paired with a sticker of a tie or flask or whatever the gifts were, for example on the GroomShop.com homepage you can see an array of possible gift choices.

You can lay them out or keep them in a numbered pile to ensure you have some form of system or organization in place. The rule of thumb is to go for lots and lots of photos. If you’re going for a printed book, they say choose between 100-150 photos. (1)

Size

Think about the size of the album, is it portrait, landscape or sqaure? Do you want a big album or a smaller one? Ultimately anything can really work as long as your printed photos are the right size for the album. You could also think about where you want to keep your album, will it be displayed on your coffee table, or tucked away on your shelf? This can help you decide on the size as well, since you might want to work with a bigger album if you want to show it off.

Pay attention to detail

When you’re putting together your album, you want to tell the story of your wedding day and to do this you’ll have to pay attention to detail. Have moments represented the way they felt, a big moment can be shown by having your images take up a whole page, from corner to corner. Intimate moments can be framed with ribbon or left without a caption.

Overall, it’s important to pay attention to things such as alignment, order, white space, color and text. The writing you choose can do a lot to help create a theme for your album.

Layout

You might want your album to be the same from page to page and keep everything neat and even, or you might want to mix it up and use different sized photos and add captions and lay your images out in different patterns. There’s no wrong way, so feel free to lay out your pictures however feels most aesthetically pleasing to you. One recommendation however would be to not overcrowd your pages or under use them either.

Cover shot

As much as people say not to judge a book by its cover, if you’re going to have your album on display you might want to consider putting in some extra time and deciding what you want as the cover. You could choose a simple album that has text on the front or you can use a photo from your big day.

Get creative

Finally, remember to get creative and have fun with it! Your album is a representation of your special day and if your day was full of love, color, joy and laughter, represent this in your album. Add glitter and funny captions or spend a little extra and use an album design service where they can use filters and add as much fun and love as you want.

Another way to get creative is think about the images you got on your wedding day that showcases other memories such as the landscape or flowers or food. These shots speak for themselves and can fill in the gaps between photo sections. (2)

Now you’re ready

A wedding album is the ultimate keepsake from your big day. It’s a great way to hold dear all the beautiful memories you created and can be the perfect way to share your day with the people who couldn’t be there. Someday you can even show it to your children and grandchildren! There are many ways you can create your album and while there are no exact rules, it’s good to consider the size, how you layout your images, and what you choose for the cover.

Your album should look as wonderful as your wedding day felt, so have fun creating!