Wedding Album as Christmas Gift

I personally find it odd to give photos of yourself as a “gift”. Like, if one of my friends or family members gave me photos of themselves as a gift, it would come off very narcissistic. I think giving parents a wedding album is a nice gesture, but I would never give it as a gift for a birthday or major holiday- I would just give it to them on a random night, “just because”.

View Quoted Comment Hmm, I hadn't considered that. I've only ever heard of doing them as gifts for special occasions, since they cost upwards of $100-$150.

View Quoted Comment I guess I should add my parents are not tech savvy, and were very excited to see the pictures of us when they came in. Right now they don't have any other access to them besides the few they asked us to print. I know they'd like a wedding album, but I guess it's worth reconsidering for my in laws.

View Quoted Comment We did a lay flat album of our engagement photos for both sets of our parents. We just gave them to them the next time we saw them. They enjoyed them, but it’s not like they were jumping up and down, over the moon excited about them. I just don’t think gifting photos of yourself will result in the sort of happiness, excitement, appreciation that a gift that was tailored to that individual and their own personal interests will. It just seems less thoughtful of a gift, and perhaps a bit narcissistic to feel as though a photo of yourself is equivalent of a “gift” to bestow on someone. IMO

View Quoted Comment Thank you for your input.

I made one for Christmas for my mom after our minimony. She LOVED it! She was heavily involved in planning and loves photos, but she didn't think she'd be tech savvy enough to do it, so she really appreciated it. I used Shutterfly (with a coupon) and it turned out great. I'm going to make her another one once I get the photos from our vow renewal/reception.

As to your other concern, I wouldn't worry. We only had 7 people (including us) and I was able to fill the pages easily. You can also control how many pages you use/how many photos you put on each page. I also had a lot of fun doing it.

I did a flat lay album via Artifact Uprising and they are great gifts. We ended up making 4 different albums for different parents to avoid it all being one side or the other. We made one for my mom, one for my dad, one for his parents and one for us. It was a LOT of work to do separate ones but definitely worth it. You can use pictures of flowers, menus, etc. to fill extra pages. We did 1 image/page.

I haven't done it personally, but a few of our friends did this and their parents loved it!

If it's a concern with the album looking 'empty', you could always gift them one photo of you both and that family member, blow it up, and frame it so they can hang it on their wall! I'm thinking of doing this for both my mom and FMIL because they love family photos.

For her birthday, I had my mom pick her favorite photo from our engagement shoot, and had it framed through Smallwoods.com. She facetimed me when she got it and was crying, and the quality was great! So I suggest that website if you go that route!

I think parents love stuff like that. I don't see it as giving photos of yourself but rather sharing photos of a special day in your lives. They can show it to people who weren't at the wedding.

We did this for our families as a Christmas gift and it was well received. Both moms were very excited about them. My original plan had been to make the first halves the same and then do one version from my parents and one version for my in laws where the second half focused more on their respective “sides” , but similar to your issue, when I sat down to put them together, I really felt the absence of H’s “family”— we had about the same amount of guests from our respective circles but H’s side was friend heavy and I figured his mom doesn’t really care about pages of pics of his friends. So I ended up just doing the same book for each, and making just one or two pages a collage of guest pics, making sure to highlight the important people. But mostly the album wasn’t guest heavy. I set it up so it told the story— first pages venue and scene setting shots, then getting ready shots, then pages of ceremony— set up, aisle walking, actual ceremony, then the recessional , etc, basically ordering the key moments. Couple pages thrown in for bridal party portraits and immediate family portraits. I was pleased with how it turned out and I know my mom keeps it on display and shows it off A LOT . It’s an easy way for her to share the highlight reel with friends

I think like everything in life, it depends. My parents are very anti-clutter. They digitized our albums years ago and got rid of all the actual albums. If they received this gift, they would ooh and ahh on the day they received it. Then never look at it again.

My in-laws would LOVE it!

Thank you.

I created one on Shutterfly (their basic hard cover which ran about $40) for several family members. They loved it. My parents are divorced so on Shutterfly I’d “duplicate” the album, save as a different name, then replace certain photos (e.g. replaced photos with me and my dad with me and my mom). I don’t know that I would spend $100-$150 on the lay-flat album. Not sure they’d appreciate that upgraded album for the cost.

We gave our parents each an album of our elopement. I designed an album for us as a keepsake, then make smaller, pared down versions for our parents. In the parents album, I emphasized the family photos a bit more and cut back on photos of the few other guests we had - so most of the spreads were identical to our album but there were a few that were slightly different. Both families received the same album.

Our parents are older (70s) and aren't as digitally embedded as younger generations are, so having a physical album was something they really appreciated. Both my mom and his mom and dad loved them.

We also gave his mom some framed family photos from our wedding for her birthday. One of my husband, his parents, and his sister, and the other one also had me and his aunts who attended in it - so basically a nuclear family photo of his immediate family and then an extended family photo with his parents siblings and me, who married in to the family. She loved those as well.

I can't see any reason why parents wouldn't love receiving this gift from their children.

It’s customary in a lot of circles to give photo albums to parents as gifts instead of the standard gifts that the wedding industry pushes because they aren’t required or necessary to give beyond anything to people beyond the bridesmaids/groomsmen.


I would give them when they come in from the photographer. I would not give them as a Christmas gift.