Our wedding album from Milk Books

16 April 2015

Friends, we have a wedding album! It’s been a long time in the making (2.5 years!), but it’s here, it’s gorgeous, and I couldn’t be happier.

IMG_5894

When we were budgeting for wedding photography, we decided to put all of our resources into purchasing talent, not products. Our “package” only included wedding day hours, not albums or an engagement session or anything else. This was 100% the right choice and I would make the same one again in a heartbeat! Tanja was worth every penny. But, I did want a wedding album at some point – it’s one of my 60 Before 30 goals!

classic-wedding-album

And I didn’t want just any album. We purchased Artifact Uprising wedding albums for our parents, which I loved, but for our one heirloom wedding album, I wanted the works: leather, classic styling, and thick, lay-flat pages.

cream-albums-presentation-box

I looked at Tanja’s albums first. She only offers one option, and it starts at $2,500. As much as I thought her albums were beautiful, there was simply no way that would ever be a feasible option for us. I kept looking, but it seemed like all of the albums I loved were only available through a photographer (not surprising, but still disappointing!). Then, I found Milk Books.

leather-wedding-album

It was as if the angels started singing. Their Cream albums are actually used by photographers for clients, which starts to tell you about the quality. Lay flat board pages? Check. Art paper? Check. White leather, a beautiful presentation box, and simple and elegant layout options? Check, check, check.

elegant-wedding-album

Cream albums are still expensive (they start at $595 for a 20-page album), but compared to the options available through most photographers, they are a steal. Also, having been subscribed to the Milk Books newsletter for the past few months, I’ve noticed two nice things – they often run sales up to 50% off (seriously – I’ve seen at least two!), and you can pre-purchase an album at any time (during sales!) and then design and order it when you’re ready. So nice!

wedding-album-ideas

The Cream online layout system is good, but not perfect. I wish I had had the option of moving pages around, since it was hard to know how much room to allocate for certain parts of the day right from the start. I loved how simple and aesthetically pleasing the layout options were, though – it would be hard to design an ugly album!

inexpensive-wedding-album

Also: strange to design pages featuring yourself :) But, you know, I figured grandchildren might like to see one day.

heirloom-wedding-album

Keep in mind, these pages are BIG. That full-bleed photo above measures more than a foot wide, and the wingspan of the open album is a whopping 28 inches!

milk-books-wedding-album

I think if I had realized JUST how large the photos would print, I would have included a few more of the layouts with multiple photos. Let that be a lesson to y’all! These ended up being some of my favorite pages.

milk-books-cream-album

reception-album-layout

It took about a month for our album to be produced and shipped to us, and we had a mini viewing party when it finally arrived! We haven’t looked at it too often since, but that’s okay – I wanted a real wedding album not because I expected to crack it open every morning, but as an heirloom for years (and people) to come. That’s exactly what we got.

professional-wedding-album-for-consumers

If you’re married, do you have a wedding album? If so, was it included in your photography package, or did you buy it separately? I’d love to hear!!

P.S. More wedding photos.

The kind folks at Milk Books offered me a discount on our album. Regardless, I’m just thrilled to share the best wedding album source I’ve found!

Subscribe
Notify of

21 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Victoria B
April 16, 2015 7:15 am

Yes! Your album is gorgeous! I got one with my photography package as I knew that I wanted it right away. We went with one of the classic mounted albums with prints literally mounted in a little frame in the page. It is so beautiful and suits our classic wedding. You can see a snap here: https://instagram.com/p/dUXSs0Nb8S/?taken-by=jessicalorren
I made my own albums for our parents on MyPublisher which included a lot more photos and came out really cute. Also, one of our guests gifted us with an engraved photo album that I plan on filling with more prints from the day that aren’t in the album we selected, since there are only about 22 photos in it.

Victoria
April 16, 2015 10:49 am

Yay! I’m so glad that you got your album! We ordered ours through our photographer (thanks dad!) and I’ve been so happy with it. You are so right.. it’s one of those things that you won’t look at daily but it thrills my heart when a guest picks it up! Your wedding photos turned out so great!

April 16, 2015 12:53 pm

What a gorgeous album and heirloom! A wedding album was not included in our photography package, just like you. So, I plan to buy it separately in the future. We were just married in December! I will definitely consider the beautiful Milk Books as an option.

April 16, 2015 1:10 pm

Your album is beautiful!!! We ordered ours through our photographer and finally got it in February (we got married in June). Even though it took awhile for us to get it, I would not have changed the decision to order through our photographer. She did a lovely job designing it and selected photos that captured the essence of our day. Even though I do not look through it all the time, it makes my heart happy just seeing it on our coffee table.

April 16, 2015 4:51 pm

What a gorgoeus album!! I’m delighted for you that you’re happy with it!!

Chrissy x
http://www.chrissylilly.com

April 16, 2015 11:32 pm

We booked our wedding photographer a few months ago, and made the same decision. For now, our money will go to talent. We’ll wait and get the album when we recover from the celebration. I hate to hear they’re tough to find, but your’s is beautiful!

Alison Oxford
April 17, 2015 4:11 pm

Sweet gracious- thank you for this! Cal and I have not created an album yet and our wedding was nearly 4 years ago! This is WONDERFUL and ends my search for a beautiful (and afforable!) album!

April 23, 2015 6:08 am

Wow, it’s a work of art! Absolutely stunning.

Mackenzie
August 25, 2015 6:51 pm

I’ve always remembered this post when thinking about wedding albums and I’m finally ready to put mine together. I know it takes a long time to get moving on this project like you said! Did you get the 20 page Cream book? Did you feel like that was enough pages? Their running a wonderful sale tomorrow and I want to take advantage of it.

Thank you!

Amanda
December 15, 2015 4:49 am

I was wondering, did you go with the art paper or the semi-gloss lustre paper for your album? I am trying to decide between the two and I like the look of your pages. Thanks!

Nicole
May 25, 2016 7:59 pm

Your album turned out wonderful- I am four years behind making ours :( How big were the photos on the pages with 9 or 12 photos. Looking at the 9 landscape photos online and worried about losing detail- not sure what they measure in person…?

eliza
July 7, 2016 7:13 am

after we saw this post, we were confident enough to order our wedding albums with milkbooks. They just arrived and the quality is great so thanks for the tip ;)! We took advantage of a great offer getting a large landscape album and two medium ones at half price. I find the medium ones to be a bit small (they are presents for our godparents) but the large one is perfect! The pictures came out great, proper levels on everything. Delivery was quite fast after we ordered them, it took like 10 days all in all…very happy with our decision, but i would wait to get an offer on their website cause they have 50% sale virtually all the time…

Patricia
August 15, 2016 12:32 am

Thanks for the reviews and for including pictures of your album. So helpful in helping me choose the right company and product. Yours is gorgeous… Can’t wait till I have my own!

August 31, 2016 10:36 pm

[…] (March 2014) 8. Order an heirloom-quality wedding album for our home (January 2015 – post here) 9. Make a watercolor, oil, or acrylic painting 10. Develop a repertoire of at least 12 […]

Scott Sadler
November 9, 2016 5:00 pm

This company is terrible. Does not honor promotional offers and has nearly non-existent customer service. Very unreliable. I would not waste your time unless you have a lot of it and it isn’t valuable to you.

My wife and I decided ton Milk as our wedding album supplier since they had offered us a coupon. The coupon is only redeemable at checkout and lasts 21 days. So, we spent many hours making up our album in order to have it ready for ordering before the expiration date.

Well, the promotional code will not work. Customer service is barely responsive and not helpful. And now we have invested 15-20 hours in creating the album but it will cost us much more than we had expected.

So yeah. We are not ordering the album we spent all that time creating and will now cost us twice what was advertised. And now, we will not have the album in time for when we will are traveling to see our families.

Milk, and more specifically, Milks’ lack of customer service and honorable business practices, have cost us the wedding album experience that we wanted.

I wish I just selected a more reputable company and ordered for a slightly higher price.

Devon
December 4, 2016 9:34 pm

Hi! I recently came across your post as I was searching for an album for my wedding photos. Your milk book album is beautiful!! My husband and I are trying to decide between milk book and artifact uprising, but find working through the Artifact uprising website so be much easier. I’m curious what the quality differences are in your wedding album and the ones you made through AU for your parents. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!!