A simple classic look to suit the style of their wedding was the perfect choice for Bradley and Jenni’s wedding album.

First of all, the cover. I die. It’s the ‘rose gold’ silk which has a gentle two-tone effect that ‘moves’ beautifully in the light. It’s the first time I’ve seen this colour made up on an album and I have to say it’s stunning. It gives colour but is somehow quite neutral. One of those that you need to hold in your hand though; a photo doesn’t do it justice. Not even one of mine ;)

The quality of Queensberry’s book-binding is second to none. And it’s all crafted by hand.

Bradley and Jenni chose to have a ‘pagemount’ matted album, which uses two layers of mount to create a reliefed border around each photo. The prints are slightly smaller than the opening in the top layer which reveals the base page underneath. As always with Queensberry there’s a choice (!) and you can choose the colour of each layer. Bradley and Jenni chose my signature style of ivory on ivory which gives texture and that extra bit of pizazz but in a very clean, elegant way.

The pages are super thick and ooze quality…

When designing Bradley and Jenni’s album I had something very structured in mind and the end result is deceptively simple. There are what I call ‘hero’ images in every wedding. It might be the photo of you walking down the aisle as husband and wife. Or the romantic photo taken at dusk. These are the photographs that will typically end up the largest in your album. My challenge here was that there were so many big moments in Bradley and Jenni’s wedding that it would be impossible to make all of their hero images big. But I wanted each photograph to speak for itself and be given the time it deserves when you look through the album. So I used lots of pages and lots of white space. And as a general rule there are no more than three photos per page.  Somehow I think you spend more time looking at fewer images on a page, than you do when there are more.

And every album should finish with a ‘wow’…

Mitesh and Ranjit are the proud new owners of a 14×10″ flushmount Queensberry wedding album. This combination of size and page style is the most popular choice amongst my clients.

The flushmount albums come in a protective velvet bag. You just know there’s going to be something special inside when you pick up the bag…

Mitesh and Ranjit chose the very hard-wearing buckram for their cover, in gun metal, which picked up on the grey suits that Mitesh and his Groomsmen wore …

I don’t want the design of an album to be noticed. It’s the photographs that are important. That’s why I like to keep the layouts clean and simple. So where photographs are grouped the space between them is always an exacting 4mm. And the tops, bottoms, left and right hand sides will always line up.

A sequence of Bride & Groom photos in the stunning gardens at Kelmarsh Hall…

And another sequence of images on the staircase. This spot is iconic Kelmarsh…

The cake cutting. Yes, I love sequences of photos! They’re a great way to tell a story.

And the ‘Rail Gaddi’ (which had Georgi and I running about all over the place) on the front lawn at sunset to finish. Twas a great day indeed …

This is one very sumptous Queensberry photo album. And perfect for Richard and Emma’s elegant wedding.

The cover is buckram in gunmetal. The buckram covers are very hard wearing and come in a choice of shades from black or pearl to bright fuschia pink. They have a slight sparkle which the magpie in me totally loves.

Richard and Emma chose the duo style of album which has a mixture of both matted and flushmount pages. Here you can see examples of the matted page, where the photograph sits inside a reliefed border which is created from a decadent two layers of mount…

And a couple of flushmount pages where the photograph fills the entire page right to the edges…

You can also have pages which mix matts and flushmount together…

Duo albums work best with around 100-120 photographs. The pages of a duo are super thick so this number looks good and helps make the album easy to handle. Richard and Emma’s is perfectly proportioned with 121 images over 17 spreads (34 pages).

And a romantic silhouette taken at dusk to finish…

Ian and Kristy chose the perenially popular flushmount style for their Queensberry wedding album. And a beauty it is too.

Oh my giddy goodness, contemporary leather in blueberry. My new (I’m so fickle) favourite…

The quality of Queensberry’s book-binding is pure class…

One of the things I really like about the flushmount albums is how sleek they look…

A scattering of full page photographs is where the flushmount album comes into its own…

Lots of white space around a collection of precisely aligned pictures keeps the look clean and ensures that a full page detail or atmospheric scene will really stand out…

And the big finish…

Brett and Katie were initially going to book one of my digital wedding photography collections simply because a large traditional album wasn’t for them. When I described Queensberry’s range of press printed books they were sold!

We ended up creating a two volume set; one book for their wedding photographs and a second book to contain pictures from their pre-wedding shoot with me and their own personal photos from their engagement weekend and honeymoon.

Katie also ordered smaller 8×8″ duplicate copies of their main wedding book for each of their parents…

There are lots of styles of covers with Queensberry’s press books; Katie and Brett chose a designable cover on which we wrapped one image all the way around…

You can also add a dust-jacket to your book which is designable too. We used the same image as the actual book cover for continuity…

Brett and Katie’s wedding was incredible and full of photo opportunities. Their wedding book is suitably epic with 275 photos to enjoy over 132 pages. These books work best with lots of pages. There’s an integral ribbon bookmark in case you need a coffee break in the middle!

Another great feature of the books is that they handle text just as well as images. Brett and Katie chose to include readings and special poetry in theirs…

The book starts with a gorgeous translucent page with their names plus the date and location of their wedding. And there are more translucents dividing each stage of their day…

Inspiration for the design of this book came from the Jimmy Choo brochure: big image on one side and smaller details on the other. Every spread, more or less, follows this structure…

When one has so many pages to work with, one must give the shoes their own spread. House rule #1.

When photographing groups I like to create some variety. Usually the variety equals options and typically the more traditional option goes into the album. After all space is limited with albums so they can’t all fit. Here, without the restriction on space, it was nice to be able to mix it all up and include the more relaxed alongside the traditional and even get in some details too…

There are also a few spreads which have lots of guest photos. These show a different aspect to the day and used sparingly a busier page brings a nice change of pace…

And one of my signature dusk photos to finish…

If there’s one thing all my clients find difficult it’s choosing a set number of photographs for their album. Stumped with the same difficult decision Chris and Charlotte decided to go for my ‘unlimited’ wedding book.

Books by their very nature hold more pages than albums. This means you can have more photos too. So I just sit down and design the perfect book. The freedom that gives makes a huge difference to your finished ‘story’.

Chris and Charlotte chose the 14×10″ landscape format with a buckram cover, in amethyst, which has a gorgeous sparkle to it…

Books are ‘perfect bound’ at the spine and this particular one has beautiful satin pages which makes it lovely to flick through.

The elegant ribbon bookmark  …

One of the most beautiful features of the books is the ability to add translucent pages in any place. Chris and Charlotte’s book has one at the beginning and several throughout …

The biggest design challenge was for the number of photos (276 to be precise!) not to be overwhelming. Our solution was to split the book into ‘chapters’ with translucent leaves to unveil each part of the day. So there are sections for the ceremony, the family photos, couple portraits, speeches and so on.  I think the visual break every so often brings a really nice pace to the story…

I took inspiration from brochures and adverts for the design. I wanted to take advantage of being able to have lots of pages by using lots of really big photos.  So each ‘chapter’ starts and finishes with a ‘full bleed’ photograph that fills the page and almost every spread (left side and right side as you look at the book) has a page with just one photograph.

Having so many large images balanced out the pages of multiple photos. There are lots of detail and guest pictures as well as all the key moments…

All in all this is a meaty book but through the design it actually feels light to look through. It does complete justice to the story of their day. I absolutely love it and will be ordering a duplicate as a sample!

The fine art albums have a beauty which can’t be compared to any other style of album. They’re beautifully hand-made to a serious quality and have a ‘manageability’ about them so you won’t need a forklift to look at it!

Mark and Emily went for the ‘rust’ vintage leather which has a lovely silky feel. And the front cover has been debossed with their names…

It’s all about the paper and printing with these albums. The archival quality fine art paper has a beautiful matte finish and the HD printing with pigment based inks gives a clarity that photographic printing can’t match. You need to see the albums to appreciate this of course …

They chose the museum-worthy art cotton paper which is a lovely warm white with a soft texture. Each page is about 1mm thick making them supple but firm…

The albums open out completely flat with an almost invisible crease…

So subtle is the crease that I found it really hard to photograph the detail and had to enhance it in this photo to show you!

The barely visible fold is great because it means that you can print across the crease to have photographs filling the entire spread without detracting from the image. And the pigment based inks won’t crack or discolour along the crease as it would with photographic printing…

A gorgeous style of album that has been really popular since I introduced it to my range this year. I can see many more of these being ordered.

Oh my, what a beauty!

This is Paul and Helena’s finished wedding album ready to depart for Thailand. It’s so beautiful. Wish I could keep it!

It’s a 14×10 inch Queensberry album in ‘black pearl’ silk. The silk is unexpectedly hard-wearing (in fact my silk sample album is wearing better than the leather) and very very beautiful. It looks really smart in the black and I love the texture.

They chose the duo style album which has been really popular amongst my clients this year. It’s a fusion of the more traditional matted style pages and the more contemporary flush-mount (or ‘full-bleed’ pages). This style is great for those couples who prefer the matted pages but want to make their favourite wedding photographs as big as possible. Or for those who just can’t decide between the two!

Photographs can be ‘bled’ right to the edges on matted pages too…

Here you can see the flexibility of the duo design on consecutive pages: (starting from the left) a full flush-mount page, in the middle a completely matted page and third, a matted page where the photo bleeds off at the top…

A close-up of the double-layered ‘pagemount’ where the photograph is trimmed to reveal the base page underneath…

The pages of a Queensberry album are luxuriously thick…

An album that will be treasured I’m sure.

Paul and Sam chose a 14×10 inch Queensberry album with flush-mount style pages, which has a clean and modern yet classic look. The blueberry contemporary leather cover complements the colour scheme of their wedding and photos perfectly. The front cover is personalised with an inset title plate with a photo, their names and the date of their wedding.

Just gorgeous. Another album that had to be prised out of my hands!

But for now, this is Colin and Sarah’s finished wedding album.

It’s a 12×12 inch Queensberry with a cherry red leather cover. They chose the ‘overlay’ matted style pages which have a single layer of mount sitting over the top of the photos. It’s such a clean, simple and timeless choice. With the matted albums you can also have a translucent leaf at the very beginning with your names and the date of your wedding. I like to design these so that the photo on the first page sits cleanly beneath the text giving a cheeky hint of what’s to come.