It doesn’t have to be square | Jorgensen Art rectangular wedding album

Everything follows patterns and trends, including wedding albums.  At the moment the most popular shape of album is square (I know it is because it’s my default to think square when someone makes an enquiry), but another shape is available!  Just because the rectangular wedding album isn’t currently as popular doesn’t mean that it’s not wonderful.  It is, in fact, a thing of great beauty.

When I started shooting weddings and supplying albums back in 2003 bigger was definitely better.  At one point I designed albums that were either 16 inches square, or 16 inches by 12; which means that if you put it on your knee, open, the book was two feet across and, more importantly, weighed a tonne!  You can still get albums of this size – and for some events the scale of them is perfectly suitable – but for most occasions the slightly smaller 14 x 10 inch rectangular book makes perfect sense.  It’s just a little bit easier to hold, weighs just a bit less, and is altogether more manageable.

Fourteen inches still means that you can get a great sized print though – up to 12 inches on a page.  Or, if I’m designing a spread that includes several images, I know that each image will still be big enough that you can clearly see the details of the individual photos.   And that’s an important detail; couples often tell me that one of the great unexpected pleasures they get on repeated viewing of their album is noticing the little details in the corners of the photos.  That’s the beauty of a proper print created in a professional laboratory.  Vivid colours and bright, sharp photos that leap out at you from the page, enhanced by being set against the subtly textured crisp white overlay.

There’s another advantage.  As designs in matted albums like the Jorgensen Art work best when the pages are laid out in grids, that little bit of extra space the rectangle gives helps with the layout.  Mixing landscape and portrait shots on the same page, for instance, is just that bit easier thanks to the shape and extra size.

Of course, I’m happy to design a wedding album that’s square or rectangular.  The important thing is that you want to have one!  So, please get in touch if you’ve been left with your wedding photos on a USB stick (or have them downloaded into a folder that’s sitting unloved on a hard drive).  There are lots of options available to create something beautiful that you’ll cherish for years to come.