Wedding albums

I haven't, but my SIL has, and I was not impressed. Your options are pretty limited as far as customization goes, and the quality is okayish. I made ours on shutterfly, and IMO it is much better. Walmart's prices aren't really that much cheaper than most of the online places and their quality is lower.

I haven't used Walmart, but I made our photo book guestbook on a site called blurb.com and I like how it's turning out. We haven't ordered it yet, but it's been easy to use and I love the options

Shutterfly? I will check them out. I just couldn't see paying starting out $350 for each. How many times are they going to be looked at? I thought it would be a nice gift to our parents. I'm already paying at least $1000 over budget for photography.

There is going to be a huge difference between the quality of an professional album that your photographer offers and what you can get at walmart.

I've never seen the albums that walmart produces however I have never been impressed with the quality of their prints that I have seen from them. I wouldn't trust them with an album. I agree with Pan that for those prices, you are probably better off with going with an online site where you will get more customization options and better print quality.

We are getting a professional one for us from the photographer and will prob use shutterfly for our parents.

I searched and searched until I found a photographer who included it with their package.

But my cousin had an album made from shutterfly for her parents and it turned out really well.

Tiffany, professional albums aren't for everyone. Not everyone sees the value in them and that's okay.

I ended up creating and ordering my own professional quality album.I was lucky enough that a friend who was a photographer allowed me access to her account to order from the professional album maker that I loved (and who only sells to photographers). The size wedding album that I made (10x10, 54 pages) cost me about 450 dollars. That was with absolutely no photographer markup. (Buying from my photog would have been 1500). I also designed and ordered small albums (10x10 again but only 22 pages each) for each of our parents and they were 240 each (again, no photographer markup)

A quality album was important to me. The albums are amazing & beautiful and a work of art in themselves and will last generations. Years from now when I can hopefully show my grandchildren they will still be just as beautiful as they are today. No faded, torn or bent pages. That's personally worth it to me.

I would go with shutterfly. I was just making a book this weekend and they have the lay flat books, like what you would get from a photographer.

I just went to a Momarrazi photography class where they teach moms how to use their camera. And my instructor has a pic that she got printed 2 or so years ago from a walmart and the pic was all faded. The reason why your photographers cost more is because the photos are protected and will last until your old and beyond. The cheapos just cant compete. Places like walgreens, shutterfly, and walmart are a no go unless you spring for all the extras (which will cost you in the long run). UV coating and high quality paper are a must to preserve memories.

I've seen one of the albums from a photographer. It looked really cheaply made that's why I can't see spending that much money for theirs. The pages stuck together and ripped the pictures. The cover was plain white and looked bad. I would rather have leather.

I would suggest going with Shutterfly or MyPublisher (which was recently bought out by Shutterfly.) MyPublisher constantly have deals going on, I recently got a small 5 x 7.5 pocket photo book as a Mother's Day gift, cost me $4.99 and included shipping, and they sent me a code for another free photo book with it.

When I got my parents albums from them (deluxe photo books with book covers that they slide into), they cost about $250 for both during a BOGO deal they had -- and they came with codes for free pocket books. They often have Groupon/Living Social deals to lower the cost, they do offer leather covers (but that will cost a little more) and will definitely be better than Walmart.

Right now they have deluxe photo books (their largest size) with lay flat pages and up to 80 pages for $80 -- makes me wish I'd waited a lot longer to make my parents books.

Well in that case then yes, an album if that quality is not worth 350 dollars. Seems like the photographer is not offering true professional albums, which I kinda suspected anyway at "only" 350 dollars. (Like I said, the 22 Pg professional albums I got for our parents were 240 direct from the maker). Sounds like he orders cheap to get a bigger profit.

Definitely do some research though. You can definitely find better options than Walmart at that same price point.

I was just asking about walmart because I've seen them in the store. I wouldn't know what website to order from. lol

I would not trust the Walmart albums to hold up over the years. Our photographer told us if we were going to make our own albums to make sure the images were printed on archival photo paper and to pay attention to the binding otherwise the album will not hold up over time. We used My Bridal Pix - they are a new service and have pro-quality albums that that you can make online with their software, much like Shutterfly but the quality was even better. They are more like pro albums that are sold direct to the public. I love my album and it was so easy to make.

My sister does photo gifts for the family for a lot of holidays, and every time she tries Walmart she ends up frustrated. The employees are not friendly or knowledgable and they've lost multiple orders she's placed. I love Shutterfly products, so I would recommend them! Plus they usually have coupons.