Create your own photo album??

This is where many never follow through, and end up with no tangible goods. The best album companies mostly only sell to pros, at least the ones I deal with do. To me it just seems logical when you hire a photographer, its to tell a story, let them finish telling it. You might try Artisan State, they're decent.

We fell in love with unbound photo albums, but the only quality ones are made by a company that only sells to a professional photographer. I have a friend who shoots architecture and some other random things, so I asked him if he could look into ordering one for us. All he had to do was provide them his professional Web address and prove that he basically does this for a living. Now we're getting the photo box for what a professional would pay (They start at $500 for the cheapest box and additional $ if we want to add anything else. Which we do.) Would you still be willing to pay a high price like this? Or would you rather just make a book off of shutter fly for $50 and call it a day? You want quality? You gotta pay for it. www.hhboogie.com/product-category/boxes/

Thank you, Jay Farrell. I do actually follow through. I am someone who still prints photos and albums and doesn't just keep things digitally. I understand paying a premium for pictures and albums (I decided to spend the most money on photography and videography for our wedding because photos - memories - are the most important element of the wedding to me. I am a photographer on the side (not enough to be considered a professional for one of the album website accounts though) and I understand the importance of capturing precious moments and telling a story. I want to finish telling my wedding story though and I want to have a say in the design. Thank you for recommending Artisan State. I took a glance and it looks like it might be a good option I'm going to look into it more.

Thanks for your recommendation, Alexis, those unbound albums look neat. I'm not quite sure if it's what I'm looking for, but I'm going to look into it more. As I mentioned in my post, I do not want just Shutterfly or Snapfish; yes, I'm willing to pay $500 or more for a professional quality album. I've read of a few people being fortunate enough to do what you did (have a photographer friend create an account for you to use). Unfortunately I don't know anyone who can/will do that for me.

I know a lot of people don't want to spend the time, effort, and money on creating a professional quality wedding album, but I do, which is why I'm researching this so much and frustrated with the lack of professional quality albums that *I* can truly customize. Any additional website/company recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

I looked at the website for the boxes. They are very pretty (& FFIL is a photographer & could order for me), but correct me if I'm wrong, it's your pictures neatly stacked in a box? I could not do that. I used to number stacks of pictures before they went in albums, so if people got them out of order, I could put them back in order. I also couldn't tolerate anyone getting fingerprints on even just the edges. Would drive me batty! Great idea, but just wouldn't work for my OCD self!

My photographer suggested Nations Photo Lab to us! They have pro-quality albums (the thick kind) starting at $99. Also, change your avatar! It helps you get more responses

I wondered the same thing, Kimi! I love the look of the boxes and the primitiveness of it, but my OCD self wouldn't be too fond of getting the photos out of order (I used to date the back of my photos, haha).

Thanks for the suggestion, AnnaKay, I'm going to look into Nations Photo Lab as well. And thanks for the suggestion about changing my avatar to get more responses. I didn't think of that before, but if it helps to get more suggestions, I'll happily do it!

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I know you said no shutterfly, but you might consider doing this as an addition. I have a photobook from there and they are actually pretty nice quality and SUPER cheap. We are making one with engagement photos to use as our guest book for the wedding.

Good luck in your search.

I just want to chime in on shutterfly too. I ordered a lay flat book for my husband of budoir photos I had done. The pages are extremely thick and it's well put together. Just a thought!

I love using Shutterfly for my personal albums, but do they make really THICK page, flush mount ones? Like 1/16 inch to 1/8 inch thickness of pages? I didn't see that when I looked, but I'll check again. I do love Shutterfly and the awesome customizations you can do with their books, but I'm not sure they have what I want for our wedding album. Thanks for your thoughts though!

Look at MyPublisher. They may have an option you like.

I started using Nation's Photo Lab and so far I love it! They have flush mount albums with thick pages. I can start with a basic layout and then resize photos, move photos, delete photo spots from the layout, add more photos to the page, set a photo as the background, use borders around photos (I prefer the thin borders), even use a fade-out round border around photos. I think they also allow a photo to be spread across two pages (although I haven't done that yet, and I'm not sure if I will). The only element I don't think they have is a fade-out square/rectangular border, which I'd like to use. Fingers crossed it continues to be as great and professional looking as it seems so far! My album is going to be very thick (I love SO many photos), haha, but that's alright and the pricing doesn't seem bad at all. Thank you all for the suggestions, and thanks AnnaKay for recommending Nations Photo Lab! I might even use them for my other casual photo books now too instead of Shutterfly.

@Rachel, sounds like you already found something good, but just in case you want to keep looking, I am using Adorama Pix which uses the lay flat flush mount pages and the pricing is decent. I can fully customize where I want things to go too. I am working on a honeymoon photo book from there, so I don't know how thick the pages are, probably thinner than you're looking for. But it's worth it to look at I think!

I know you said you didn't want to use Shutterfly, but they really are worth a look. I am extremely picky about these things and was really pleased with my end result. I got a leather bound album with double thick lay-flat pages and they are quite thick. As far as layout, I think simple is better and did solid black pages with minimal decoration (a few things here and there to explain or fill space). You pick the number of pictures you want on a page and there are many options for each number. I even did one two page spread of my favorite picture and it looks awesome. I don't think you'd look at it and think, oh, there's another generic Shutterfly book. I made it during a sale and had a coupon code on top of it and I think it was around $150. It would have been well over $200 regular price though.

For prints, I always use Mpix - not sure if they have an album option, but their print quality is pro level.

Thank you, Happy in Hawaii and Jess, I'm always open to suggestions I'll take a look at Adorama Pix, and I'll look again at Shutterfly options (I know they do produce nice books, I always love the photo books I get from there)... I still have to make an album for our engagement photos, so I'll be re-considering all the websites for those photos!

I just ordered my album from Nations Photo Lab and I can't wait to get it (in about one month)! I LOVE how I designed it and the flexibility I had in designing it. I ended up with a 12x12 acrylic cover album with 38 sides (19 pages - thick pages), I fit about 115 photos in it (but it doesn't look too crowded), and it came to about $430 plus $10 shipping. I am SO glad I chose to design it myself and get exactly what I want

The only issue I ran into was at the end for page options.... The screen would not allow me to properly select and type what I wanted inscribed on the inside front cover, so I had to email them after placing my order to ensure it will be done right (still waiting to hear back). Thank you to all for the suggestions, and especially to AnnaKay for suggesting Nations Photo Lab! Now back to Shutterfly to do my "normal" albums and possibly my engagement album...

I went old school and got prints and scrapbooked them. By doing this you get full customization.

My niece just did hers on Shutterfly and I was shocked at how well it turned out. It is beautiful.

Thanks for all the updates on Nations Photo Lab! Now I'm excited to design my own wedding album!!

Wanted to bump this thread because I too am looking into websites to do this.

So far I am down to Adoramapix and Nations Photo Lab. The software is almost identical.

I also read about ZNO but I heard quality may have gone down?

Also I doubt OP is still around but I'd like to know about Nations Photo Lab quality.

I am looking for thick thick paper, panoramic spread.