Hello, did anyone here make their own album?  I would like the professional looking albums that the photographers sell for hundreds of dollars but of course, I don't want to pay the "wedding markup" price =).  I'm looking for the albums with a leather cover and thick pages. 

Thanks ladies

"Wedding markup price" is simply how we pay for food on our tables. ;o)  It's a shame, huh?

But AnyWays...

You might try http://www.albumboutique.com/

Or here (but not thick pages) http://www.photobookamerica.com/

There are very few companies that provide professional quality albums to consumers.  For the most part, this is to protect them from mistakes that are commonly made when the albums are ordered and since they are more expensive to make, mistakes are more expensive to "eat".

OR if you if you get really hard up and cannot find a consumer available album that has what you're looking for, then how well do you know Photoshop or InDesign?  (because the professional album companies must have your layout designed in one of these programs at a high resolution - my files for each spread are about 50 MB each - another thing to consider).  If you have a book designed with one of these programs to spec., why not just contact a photographer that provides the album you want and ask them to order it for you?  I've done this for a few brides that were graphic designers.

If you are not able to design in Photoshop or InDesign, well, this is just another reason that pros charge what they do. For their skill and the cost of these expensive programs!

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

Thank you for the resources doolittlebride. I am planning on designing my own album with those programs you mentioned. I was just trying to find places that would produce it the quality that I wanted.

I don't need assistance with the layout aspect, but noticed that the links you gave incorporated the cost of having someone lay it out.

Do you have any other resources just for printing?

Thanks.

Well, I don't really have any additional resources for printing professional-like albums - really, I would tell you if I did. ;o)

The "problem" is that when an album company offers to both professionals and consumers, often the pros will completely avoid using that company and in a sense, boycott them.     Not out of spite but out of the abiltiy to make a living.  It's a hard concept to understand apparently and I've tried to figure out the best way to make people see that we are not evil, just people trying to feed ourselve and our family.  This added to the risk of offering services to people not skilled at how to calibrate their monitor or familiar with layout design specs can make a company like that fail.

Any here ever buy Starbucks or popcorn at a movie theater?  Do you realize that the coffee at Starbucks costs less than 10 cents to make?  Why is is $4 then to you?  Same with movie theater pop corn and candy.  It's a business and it's how they make money.  You can chose to make coffee at home or not buy it in the theater...but this is a difficult analogy because there you have a choice.

You can do your own plumbing, your own house-cleaning, etc...there are things you can do yourself, but there are things we choose to pay to be done by a professional, too.

With wedding album companies that provide the same level of album, they are also taking a risk by letting consumers order so those that do often do not survive.