Ah, experience...

One of the (only) benefits of dating unsuitable men for 24 years is that you have an incredible opportunity to figure out what qualities, quirks, and dealbreakers you do not want in your future husband. I could write for days on such a subject - I've got stories you wouldn't believe - but maybe I'll save one of those for another post. Anyway, before I met my most amazing Husband, I dated an extremely talented photographer. Talented? Yes. Driven and purposeful? No. (Dealbreaker. That was just one of them.) I helped him edit many photos, assisted on shoots and gave him my "girl opinion" when dealing with bridal-y matters. From this very fruitless relationship I did, however, gain some serious Photoshop-ing skill and a few tricks of the trade in the photog business. Take for example, my two favorite gems of former photog boyfriend wisdom:
MPix.com and MyPublisher.com.

Former Photog BF (FPBF) used mpix for his printing and everything always came to him flawless. I've been using their printing service since the demise of the "relationship" and couldn't be happier! If you are lucky enough to have been given a CD of your wedding photography as part of your package like I was, printing with them is easy and pretty darn cheap. They also have this AMAZING metallic photography paper, which sounds totally ridiculous, but it's bea-utiful in both B&W and color. I should be receiving my 4th order since the wedding very shortly... just in time to send off a billion Christmas presents.

FPBF also printed many beautiful albums for brides, and proceeded to charge an arm and a leg, but I guess that is how business works. Anyway, our wedding photographer created a charming album and emailed me a proof, and also told me the price. I almost passed out and vomited a little bit. And then I remembered FPBF's deep dark secret - www.mypublisher.com! So, my crafty self got to work late last night and put together a goregous album that pretty much blew my photographer's out of the water (and her price.) And get this: they are basically handing out Buy One, Get One Free coupons. My parents will have a glorious album waiting for them under the tree, oh and don't forget, Husband and I will have our own (free!) copy too. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a cheap project. For $176.00 I have two hardbound, 59-page wedding albums headed my way. Custom made with all of my favorite photos. Yippie!

I was reading on the MyPublisher boards about how lots of brides were creating their own page templates and doing crazy business with Photoshop and then uploading it to their albums... But I wasn't exactly into it. I really preferred the simple layouts - just with our images telling the story. The only thing I'm a wee-bit bummed about is that I just now realized that I placed the wrong photo on the cover - my Photoshop-ed version had some pretty text with our names and wedding date... My fault for not re-checking this detail... Regardless, my parents will love it, and I'm super excited to have more wedding paraphernalia hanging around our home! I'm sure I'll be creating another one in the future...

If you would like to check it out, click here and enter the book number S2045038 into the field, hit submit... and thennnnn.... enter the password when prompted: 2482027


I swear my life is more interesting than this. Usually.