Wedding albums are something I believe really strongly about. If you doubt me at all, take a look at this entire blog post I dedicated to them. I think they are absolutely worth the investment to have your wedding day told in a professionally laid out storyboard of images–your images. It is one of the greatest tangible articles you can pass down through your generations. Think for just one moment how much you would treasure your great-grandparent’s wedding album. That is why I place so much value in them.

While I talked about wedding albums a lot and they are very common for couple’s to get, I think it’s time to shed some light on their relative: the engagement album.

Do I think it’s necessary to have an engagement signing album? Not as much so as a wedding album. However, I do think an engagement album is a stunning way to display your photos (these last professional ones before you are married!) and the best kind of signing album you could have at your wedding.

The end result is two beautiful albums: one of your engagement photos with well-wishes from your guests who attended your wedding day and one of your wedding day from start to finish. Together, they are the complete treasure book series of this particular time in your life.

These are the beautiful linen colors that you get to choose from for the cover. The albums shown are in Steel and Midnight. Steel has stunning blue-green tones that seem so shift depending what color they are sitting next to. Midnight is a rich, deep blue and Taupe is a beautiful, rich khaki color. Smoke is a light gray with Slate being the darker gray colorway.   Black is a standard classic.

If you are using your engagement album as your signing album at your wedding (as most couples do), I’ll be sure to design the album with lots of white space for guests’ signatures and well wishes.

I took these photos above and blow to show how a spread is laid out and what exactly it means to have a “lay flat” album. A lay flat album is precisely that: when opened, it lays flat with thick pages. The seam is the middle is constructed so that we can do full photo spreads and design across the mid-section without any gap.

The Engagement Signing Album comes standard as an 8×8 album filled with 20 pages of your session images, designed in a way to leave room for signatures and comments. This album comes wrapped in a beautiful linen cover with the option to have one of your favorite photos inset in the cover. You also have the option to upgrade your album size to either 10×10 or 12×12. (Shown below are 8×8 and 10×10.)

The best pens for guests to use is these Sharpie felt tip pens or these Sharpie ultra fine point markers. Because they are in the Sharpie family, there’s no drying time thus eliminating any smudges. And, yes, I know they aren’t the prettiest, but practicality rules in this case.