Blurb Wedding Photo Book review

fallbride1109

I did a Blurb book of our wedding pictures for my mom for Mother's Day and thought I would give my review.

CN:  Nice book or gift for extended family, but much prefer the professional quality wedding album for myself.

Overall, as a gift for my mom, I'm pretty happy with it.  The only thing I did wrong was get too many pages.  I did a 10x8 Standard Landscape with an image wrap cover and I did 24 pages.  I had the book laid out for 20 pages but I kept wanting to add more, not taking the size of the book into consideration.  So with this many pages in this size book, the pages do not lay flat.  

I also got the "premium paper" in this book which I did not get when I did my guestbook in Blurb.  And while I would recommend it for a photo book, for a guest book you are fine not getting the premium paper.  In fact, I think I prefer the regular paper for a guest book.

This is not a professional photo album by any means.  The difference between this book and my professional album is huge.  But there is also a huge difference in price.  This book was $43.94 total.  I ordered it last Saturday and got it today, so 1 week turnaround.

The color quality of the pictures is good.  It looks exactly like it did when I previewed it.  I love the imagewrap cover that Blurb offers.  The thing I don't like about Blurb for a wedding album is the templates.  Although you can edit the templates, they do not offer "panoramic" templates--that is, you can't put 1 picture across both pages.  For a wedding book, I think that limits what you can do.  However, if you are skilled in other publishing software, you can lay out your book using different software and then just print it through Blurb and this is what I would recommend.  I was limited to using the provided templates.

You should be able to view the first 15 pages here:  http://www.blurb.com/books/1274752

Here are some pics of it:
Cover:

First page:

Middle pages--see how it doesn't lay flat any more:

Last 2 pages:


There are also a few spots on the back of the cover and maybe it's the smaller size, but it doesn't look as nice as my guest book did.  Overall it's a nice gift for my mom but if this were my only photo album of my wedding, I would be a little disappointed.  This book will not hold up for years once you've looked at it over and over.  But you can't beat the price.  I would recommend springing for the larger books that Blurb offers, especially if you want a lot of pages.

mandasue178

Steph -- I'm pretty sure the pages won't lay flat no matter what you do. We ordered a smaller one, and it still doesn't lay flat. I also found I was happier with pages that were a full bleed, rather than having a border, but I think that's personal preference.

Your book is adorable!

Bootsie12

Thanks for the information. I was looking into ordering extra books from my photographer, but this is a great option for extended family. It looks great.

fallbride1109

Thanks!  I got the 13x11 landscape with 20 pages for my guestbook and it lays almost totally flat.  I wonder if it's the thicker paper maybe?  Dunno.....

llc2011

Thanks Steph.  I used blurb for my personal photo albums, like our trip to Disney and the cruise.  I think it would be best for the guest book or like PP mentioned maybe extended family.  I book marked the other company you used for the album because I think that one looked awesome!

ChocolateDelight

What a lovely idea.   I love your cover picture.   It is certainly something I will consider doing for my Mom and MIL.   Thanks for sharing your experience.

fallbride1109

Yeah the CN version is:  nice book for parents or extended family, but I much prefer the professional album for myself.