Recaps: Family Time

We had our picture time at Bowness Park, which is a really quite lovely place for pictures. Or Picnics. Or BBQs. Or walks. Or skating in the winter. I digress. First off, we had family formals by the lagoon – I won’t bore you with the many permutations and combinations of photos, just the more exciting ones.

This is my family. They are pretty much awesome and I love them a lot.

This is unfortunately the only picture that “turned out” with Mr. Bean’s family. Yes, my face is scrunched up and I look like I’m more baring my teeth than smiling. But I’m still happy! I do find it hilarious that Ian’s brothers missed the memo to put their head in.

There we go. Classic Bean sibling shot. It has to be one of my favourite shots ever as we do it pretty much every time photos are taken.

And here we are laughing and lovingly gazing into each other’s eyes. Awww…

We decided to only have family formals with our immediate family and grandparents or else it would have taken a REALLY long time. It probably would have been 60 or 70 people if everyone who was related to us came and that would be somewhat of a nightmare.

Who is coming/came to your family formals? Are/Did you look forward to them or were they just a necessity for you?

Next up: Bridal Party!

As usual, Photos by Kathleen Goertzen.

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Blurb and Photo in Press Compared

Note: The opinions stated here are based on my experience with each place.

Mr. Bean and I decided that part of our Christmas presents to our parents would be a photo book for each of them. Both were originally going to go with Blurb, but two things happened. First of all, someone posted on weddingbee that there was a Canadian book printing place called “Photo in Press“. This piqued my interest because they said that it was where a lot of place got their books printed and it’s Canadian (=save me money on shipping.) Second thing was for my inlaw’s book, it stopped being able to find our wedding pictures on our computer. Thus, I decided to redo their book on Photo in Press and keep my parent’s book on blurb. Thankfully my parent’s book was already complete.

Blurb:

Description: 28 page full colour hard cover book with premium quality paper. The book has a printed dust cover.

Size: 7×7 inches.

Design notes: Many flexible options for picture layouts, but layouts good for photo books seem to be limited. Allowed you to size pictures however you wanted and has designs where photos were overlapped. Blurb requires you to have a copyright page and a back page. Up to 40 pages is $22.95 USD.

Program use: Program was very easy to use, but used a lot of ram on our poor old compy.

Cost: $25.95 USD for 28 page book with premium quality paper. I found a $10 off shipping coupon online, so priority shipping to Canada was only $10.80.
Total: $36.75 USD = 45.46 CAD (boo! not nice exchange rate!)

Quality of Printing: Okay, you could tell that it wasn’t photo lab quality, though. The paper was nicer and thicker than Photo In Press though!

Shipping Time: I ordered it on November 1st. It was shipped on November 11th and arrived on November 26th.

Photo in Press:

Description: 20 page full colour hard cover book. The hard cover is black suede and has a window in it to see a picture.

Size: 8.75 x 11.25 inches

Design notes: Many flexible options for picture layouts, but they don’t allow you to fit pictures in smaller than the frame or to overlap photos. Photo in Press does not require you to have a copyright and back page, which saves 2 pages in the page total. Extra pages beyond 20 are $.99 CAD per page.

Program use: Program was very easy to use, but also used a lot of ram on our poor old compy.

Cost: $29.99 CAD for 20 page book. Shipping was $8.39 CAD to Alberta and GST was $1.50 CAD
Total: $39.88 CAD

Quality of Printing: Pretty good. Paper was similar to what you’d find in a story book.

Shipping Time: I ordered it on November 1st. It was shipped on November 4th and arrived on the 12th. Not bad.

Mr. Bean and I have decide that for our future printing projects, we’re going to go with Photo impress, for you get more “bang for you buck” and shipping is A LOT cheaper and faster since we’re in Canada.

What have been your experiences with Online Photobook printing places? Which ones would you use again?

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Parental Requests and Expectations

When Mr. Bean and I got engaged, my parents were quite pleased. (They knew it was coming as Mr. Bean won brownie points by asking permission from my dad first!) However, Mama Bean did have a few requests to make us on our big day:

• That we were not allowed to elope – it’s going to be a celebration!
• That we would get married in a church.
• That there would be a champagne toast to the bride.
• That every table would have a glass of wine.
• That we not move in together, etc. now that we were engaged.

Dad Bean was very specific:

• Do not choose the house wine as your red wine as it is disgusting (… and you don’t want to have your guests remembering the bad wine, etc. etc.)

Given our traditional christian backgrounds and the fact that my parents are helping us pay, Mr. Bean and I acquiesced to their agreement. I wouldn’t want to elope anyways, planning is too much fun!

What requests have your parents/family made of you and what have you done about them?

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