tina + andy – a new leaf

January 31, 2013

I’ve been designing wedding albums for a few years now and I love how they’ve transitioned over time. Wedding albums are now contemporary and beautiful books that can be savored for lifetimes. Beautifully bound with a variety of cover options to choose from in either leather or fabric.

I’ve found over the years that there are only a few companies I use and trust to produce my albums. My favorite, hands down, is Leather Craftsmen. They’ve been producing albums for a long time and they just know what they’re doing. About a year or two ago I had a meeting with the west coast rep, Ira, and as we caught up about life and business I asked him if they could try something for me. I wanted to use fabric from a wedding dress on the cover of the album. I knew that covering the entire album would be difficult so I asked if they could make a stripe. He said if I provided the strip of fabric, he would see what they could do. I never dreamed what would be born from that conversation.

He asked me if he could use my idea and now, adding a stripe to the cover of an album has become HUGE. I asked that they don’t use my idea of the wedding dress fabric and they’ve stayed true to that promise. I’ve found it difficult to have those stripes made but it is possible. I was able to incorporate the fabric of one brides dress on her album and it’s so stunning. You can see that album HERE. I’m excited to do more of these books in the future, but for now, stripes are huge and are mostly created using the leather and/or fabric that Leather Craftsmen already uses. Much simpler!

The book I want to share today is one that I designed over the course of last year. It was a long process but sometimes things that take a long time turn out to be the best. This is one of those situations. Tina contacted me so, so long ago. Way back in 2009! She contacted me and then life happened. A year passed and then in 2010 she was back in touch. We exchanged some emails and then life happened again and she had to put the project on hold. When she reached out another year later, I was so happy that she was ready to move forward. We worked back and forth with the design of her book, she’s a graphic designer as well, and integrated her wedding stationary into the album. It was so much fun! Her colors were this great mix of green, brown, copper and magenta. She also wanted to add text throughout her book. Certain lines from songs or readings that were part of their wedding.

I just loved this project and when the book arrived and I was able to hold it in my hands I was thrilled. It had been a while since I was “wow’d” from an album and this definitely did that. It was also satisfying to have finished a project that had literally started almost three years earlier!

[ Tina, what a ride! It was quite a long journey but so worth the wait. I hope you love your book as much or more than I do! I wish you and Andy many, many years of happiness and thank you so much for trusting me with your wedding album.]

Here is their book. Beautiful in so many ways. I hope you enjoy and are inspired!