Wedding book printing

Honestly: no — and we’d rather tell you that than sell you the wrong thing. We’re edition printers: runs start at 10 copies, hardback or paperback. If you want a single album of your photographs, a photo-book or albums service is the right buy. Where we earn our keep is when the book is for everyone — a keepsake edition for guests and family, printed to the same standard as a retail hardback.

From 10 copies, hardback or paperback — the same minimum as every book we print. Typical wedding runs are 10–100: ten covers the inner circle, twenty-five both families and the bridal party, and one per guest household for the full keepsake edition. Per-copy prices fall sharply across that range, so it’s worth pricing a couple of quantities. Reprints later run at the same minimum.

The words get used interchangeably, but in practice there are two tiers. A high-street photo book is a single digitally printed copy with a glued spine — quick, inexpensive, made once. A proper wedding album is built like a book: sewn sections, a real case in cloth, leather or printed board, finished by hand (the next question covers why the binding matters). That’s what we make — and because we print editions rather than single copies, every guest or family member can have the same album, not just the couple. If you only want one copy, a consumer photo-book service is the right buy; if you want a book that lasts and that everyone gets, that’s us.

Most high-street photo books are perfect-bound — pages glued at the spine. Cheap to make but the glue lets go after enough use, and the book never opens fully flat (the gutter swallows part of every spread). Thread-sewn stitches the pages into sections before binding, so the book opens flat for easy viewing and lasts decades. It’s standard on every wedding book we print.

For most wedding books we recommend 130–170gsm matt coated — rich, faithful photographic colour without the high-gloss shine that shows fingerprints. Gloss coated is there if you want maximum punch from the colours, and stepping up to 200gsm reads as unmistakably premium when the book is held. Order a free sample pack to feel the difference before deciding.

The strongest ones read like a short story of the day: how you met, the proposal, photographs from the morning through to the last dance, the speeches in full (ask your speakers for their notes — they’ll be flattered), the menu, and a page or two from the guest book. The aim is the day told as a story, not a photo dump.

As a rough guide, allow two to four photographs per spread so images have room to breathe — cramming a dozen onto a page is the quickest way to make an album feel cheap. Most wedding books land at 60–100 pages, which at that density holds roughly 60–200 photographs and tells the story of the day without padding. Page counts are even numbers, and the per-copy price moves with both the page count and the quantity, so it’s worth pricing a couple of lengths in the calculator above. Your photographer will usually have a recommended edit; if not, choosing your favourite 120 or so images is a sensible target.

Yes. We offer leather and vegan-leather equivalents for hardback wedding books, with optional foil blocking on the front cover and spine. It’s the most premium finish in our range and works particularly well for the parents’ editions in a larger run.

Standard turnaround is around 10–15 working days for hardback wedding books from approval of your proof. Express options are available where the deadline is tight — drop us a note before placing the order if it’s a same-month deadline and we’ll confirm what’s achievable.

No design tool to wrestle with here — we work from a print-ready PDF, which most couples get from their photographer or a designer (most wedding photographers offer album design, or supply InDesign and Lightroom layouts). If you’d rather we laid it out, we can typeset the album from your images for a fee — send the photographs and a rough running order and we’ll build the spreads. Either way, every order gets a free file check and a proof to approve before printing, so nothing goes to press until you’ve signed it off.

Press-ready PDF is easiest, with 3mm bleed on all edges, all images at 300 DPI and CMYK colour throughout. We also accept high-resolution image files and can lay them out for a fee, or work with files exported from Lightroom, InDesign or design tools your photographer uses.

Yes — we send out free sample packs showing different binding styles, paper stocks and cover finishes including bound dummies where stock allows. Particularly useful for couples who want to feel the materials before signing off the spec.