I've been a busy little possum lately with album designing so I thought I'd blog a bit about the whole process and why it usually ends up being my favourite part of the wedding post-work.

I think the albums are so fun because that's where it all comes together.  I think the album is about telling the stories of the wedding, the story of two people who found each other and two sets of friends who are so happy for them.  And the story of two families coming together.  These stories are there in the pictures of course but somehow it's the way they're put together in the album that really makes it come alive.

I always start with the images.  I make sure I've got a couple of hours, I turn off the ringer on the phone, put on some cruisy music and open it all up in Photojunction.  I go through the images and pull out the ones that 'sing to my soul'; the ones that really say something about who these people are, their relationships, the things that are important to them.  I drop them on the empty pages and I'm thinking to myself about the day.  I'm thinking this spread is about the preparation, the details, things chosen so carefully...and this spread is about her and her mum and how proud they are of each other...and this spread is about mates, about friends who have your back no matter what.

I remember being taught in school that a paragraph should be summed up in the first sentence and then backed up by supporting information.  I guess I think of a two page album spread the same way...usually one big image that sums up what it's all about and smaller supporting images that fill in the details.

So then I go back through and play around with the layouts, the sizes of the images, the way they sit on the page, whether they are colour or black and white (or something else again).  Sometimes I can't decide and I create a couple of alternates.

And then I save!

So this is the point at which you see your design.  We sit together and go through the pages looking for the places where I got the story wrong!  Or where you prefer a slightly different image.  Sometimes we need to take out a couple of spreads, sometimes we need to add a couple.  It's super easy to make changes on the screen and get a good idea of how it's going to look in real life.

You take away a proof copy to think about and show around.  And we touch base later in the week.  Sometimes we tweak it slightly and we're good to send the order.  Other times we have a second (or even a third!) design session together before finalising the order.  I'm so not into rushing this part because everybody knows good things take time!

And then comes the hard part of course...waiting for Queensberry to make the album :-)

(These pics are from Charlotte and Iain's album)