Friday, September 16, 2011

So, We Have All These Pictures...

Now, what do we do with them?

Mr. Goodlaff and I had thousands of pictures to go through after the wedding.  With such beautiful photos, we had to find some way to display them all!

Mr. Goodlaff and I chose not to include an album in our photography package, knowing that we'd use some kind of online service to create our own album, post-wedding.  We made sure we got the digital rights to our photos, which meant we could basically do whatever we want with them.  Use Photoshop to draw mustaches on our guests? Check.  Poster-size prints? Check.  Self-made album? Check.

It turns out that being Costco members has advantages beyond gigantic jars of mayonnaise and pickles. We discovered that My Publisher partnered with Costco to provide a 20% discount to members, so without any real comparison shopping, we decided to create our wedding album through that company. At the time they were also running a buy one, get one free offer, which was a huge savings and a big enticement for us, seeing as we wanted to get albums for each set of parents.  Total quantity needed: four books.  Perfect!



Then, it was time to get down to work. This meant sorting through all of our pictures.  All of them.  Thousands.  I'm not going to lie--it was brutal.  And excruciating.

No, really.  It took us almost five hours to choose our pictures and create our book.  We chose layouts for each page and customized all the little details.  And our book looks fantastic.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely.  Do I ever want to create another wedding album with Mr. Goodlaff ever again?  Absolutely not. 

The way My Publisher works is that you download their software, choose your photos, pick your book style, create your layouts, and then click send.  It was, aside from many hours we spent doing it, pretty painless.  Really easy to use, easy to customize, and there were a ton of style options and extras to choose from.  Even without a Costco discount, their prices are incredibly reasonable. An 8.5" by 11" book starts at $29.80 for 20 pages.  Every page after that will cost you an additional 99 cents, and you can go up to 100 pages total. 

Our books arrived in this really cute packaging, and it took less than two weeks from ordering to delivery.   The quality is very high. We are thrilled with the final product:












I was so happy with the turnout that I see more albums in our future.  I have a ton of pictures from the year I spent in China, so in the next year or so, I plan to create a book of those photos using My Publisher.  Hey, it's only been six years, what's one more?  Our upcoming honeymoon pictures?  Time for another album!

I would really recommend this company to any of you who are considering creating your own album, and make sure you check back with them often--the sales and specials change all the time. You too may be able to get a great deal on your wedding album!

What are you doing with all your wedding photos?

3 comments:

  1. you can't help receiving nice things from life!!! :D

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  2. that looks fantastic!! I created an online album of our honeymoon on mixbook.com. I'll def. check out the program you used too!

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  3. You could also put those pictures into a digital scrapbook that will place them on an interactive map and timeline! You can share them with who ever you want at Intersect.com - I use it for reader photos on my blog and it's great! Intersect will know when and where they were taken automatically, like magic. It's super easy.

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