Engagement Album

I'm taking a brief break from recaps to share with you something that made me very happy this week, our engagement album. As a designer myself I'm a bit of a control freak about layouts and I knew I'd want to handle the design of our wedding album myself. Not being a photographer, the options for a professional album are very limited. Most sites out there only offer coffee table albums to the general public. I've known for a while that mpix.com offers what they call an "assembled album" which is similar to a flush mount album that you can get from your photographer except that the pictures aren't quite flush to the edge, there's a 1/16" border around each picture, but that's pretty darn close.

I decided to test out the assembled albums with an album of our engagement pictures. I was skeptical that this album would meet my (very high) expectations but when it arrived this week, I was absolutely thrilled with it. The pages are very thick and sturdy, they lie completely flat when opened, the cover is leather (not pleather) and it comes in a beautiful black storage box. It's definitely a professional album, and not a coffee table book. Here are some detail shots:




I wanted the layouts to be very clean and timeless, no colors or decorative elements. I put a black background behind each page and laid pictures on top with a very fine rule around each picture, just enough to show the edge of the image. I'm so happy with how this book came out, I can't wait to get started on our wedding album. All pictures in the album are copyright Erica Ferrone.

Mpix.com doesn't offer templates for these books and you're limited to one image per page. I created the layouts in InDesign and then exported each page as a single jpeg. Here are the layouts of the album:

Slow posting

I thought things would slow down after the wedding was over, boy, was I wrong. The good news is that the reason I'm so busy is because the company I was laid off from before the wedding asked me to come back, with a promotion, for a contract position until the end of October. In addition to working full time I'm extremely busy with freelance work. I'm currently working with quite a few brides on their wedding stationery and I'm thrilled to be getting my invitation business off the ground. Recaps may be slow, but I promise I will get through them all.

Paper loving recap: The girls get ready

I woke up at 6am the morning of the wedding, unable to sleep anymore. I had breakfast with my Mom and we chatted for a bit, then I headed off to get my hair done. My hair took 2.5 hours during which my Mom, sister and a bridesmaid came and went from the salon from their own hair appointments. (Picture courtesy of Lauren Peate.)
While I was out getting my hair done, Mom made some chocolate covered strawberries for everyone to enjoy. (Picture courtesy of Lauren Peate.)





















I returned, Dad got dressed, and I adjusted his shirt so he looked perfect. Please excuse the face I'm making in this picture, I love the "proud dad" face my dad has on so I love this picture. (Picture courtesy of Lauren Peate.)




















Mom's turn for makeup.































Then it was my turn.































Lauren, my sister, did double duty as bridesmaid and photographer.


















Time to get dressed.


















The girls help tie up my corset back.






















































I couldn't bend over enough to put on my shoes, luckily my girls rock and helped me out.



















And then I was ready.


















All pictures courtesy of Erica Ferrone Photography unless otherwise noted.

Paper loving recap: Rehearsal

It's time to start the recaps! I'm going to go in chronological order, so let's start with a couple pictures of the reherasal and rehearsal dinner. We had some terrible cold rainy weather leading up to the rehearsal day.

Once we arrived at church, the rain stopped and by the time we got to the restaurant for dinner the sun came out! It was great to have the people who mean the most to us all together. Everyone got along famously... especially the wedding party and their dates... most of whom had never met each other. We couldn't have asked for a better night!

We don't have many pictures of the actual rehearsal, but here's what we do have. After the rehearsal we headed over to a rustic New England restaurant for dinner. The wedding party then headed over to the bar by their hotel to continue the party.

Pro Pics!

Here's a sneak peek at our pro pics, I'll post more details when we get all of the images. All pictures by our awesome photographer, Erica Ferrone.

We're back!

While I wait for our pro pics to do some recaps and share some details from the day I thought I'd share some of the pictures from our wonderful honeymoon! Chris and I spent a fabulous week at Sandals Whitehouse in Jamaica. It was great to get away from everything and just relax on the beach for a week, we both definitely needed the break from reality.

These flowers were everywhere. They were gorgeous and gigantic!

I'm a Mrs!

It's official, we're married! It was an amazing evening surrounded by our amazing family and friends. We're relaxing and resting up today and then heading off to Jamaica in the morning. I'll share all the details when we return but in the meantime here's a teaser shot from our rock star photographer, Erica Ferrone!