Scrap Girl

Coming up with titles for wedding pages can be kind of tough especially if you don’t want your album to look like everyone else’s.  For many of the weddings that I scrapbook, the couple’s names start off the first page.  I browsed through my two wedding albums and here’s some ideas to help you out with other pages:  Aunts, Uncles and Cousins…Oh My, Love Birds, Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, Let’s Dance, Sing A Tune, The Big Day, Walk Down the Aisle, Celebrate, Gifts Galore, Here Comes the Bride, With This Ring I Thee Wed, and Strike A Pose.  Some other titles I have seen used are Pretty Maids in a Row for Bridesmaid pictures and Prince & Princesses for kids in the wedding party.  It is good to work on wedding pictures at a retreat and then you will have a whole bunch of ideas you never even thought of.  A friend of mine worked on her wedding pictures last year at our retreat and we were all able to help her out with ideas on her pages.  That’s what scrapbooking friends are for! 

I was looking through my wedding albums and came across these pages.  Now these are examples of when you choose to spend more time on your pages.  These are pictures of my brother-in-law’s wedding.  I tend to spend more time on layouts like this because they are close family members and I have way more pictures than I usually would just attending a friend or cousin’s wedding.  I think I actually have about 6 or 7 pages dedicated to this wedding including the bridal shower and all of the other events that go along with the wedding itself (rehearsal, gift opening, etc.)  This two page layout is my favorite of the whole lot.  I worked on these pages two years ago at a retreat.  I believe I used a Sissix die-cutter for the title letters, a circle punch for the letter background, and various assorted wedding saying cut-outs.  Unfortunately, this was before blogging or sharing my layouts was even thought of, so I didn’t really keep track of names and brands of the supplies I used like I have been recently.  (Sorry!)  Those cute little girls are mine and look so precious, which is another reason I love these pages so much.

I’m not a big stamper, but I have a few stamps and some acrylic alphabet sets mostly for making page titles.  When I was at my annual scrapbooking retreat last year, a friend had some really big letter stamps so I decided to try one out for one of my wedding pages.  I scraplifted the initial idea for this wedding page from a layout in Creating Keepsakes and turned it into my own.  There is no shame in requiring a little inspiration now and then, right?  So I stamped the giant “M” for the bride and groom’s last name and then used the Cricut electronic cutting machine to cut out their first names.  I used the circle cutting tools I have from Creative Memories to cut circles and then put them all together.  Lastly, I used a date stamp (I’m using this more and more) to stamp the date of their wedding in the middle and stapled on a ribbon piece.  I really like how this page turned out. 

If your like me sometimes you feel like going the extra mile on a scrapbook page and sometimes you just feel like getting the pictures done.  I have started becoming a firm believer that you don’t have to scrapbook every picture you take, just those that speak to you in a meaningful way.  I try to make a scrapbook page or two for every wedding that we go to and sometimes coming up with new ideas can be difficult.  For this layout, I used an invitation as a centerpiece and placed pictures around it.  The title is made up of letter stickers and I decided to be different and actually used some Creative Memories letter sticker templates I have to form a circle with the bride and groom’s names.  The pages in my wedding albums don’t have a lot of formal titles for them.  They usually start out with the bride and groom’s names.  Every once in a while I will throw in a fun title like on the right-hand page.  “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” pretty much works as a title for any wedding reception.  If you knew my cousins, you would think it especially fitting.

When you go to a wedding there are all sorts of keepsakes.  First, you get the invitation which sets the tone of the wedding from the beginning.  At the church you get a paper program for the service and at the reception there are napkins and other favors with the bride and groom’s names on them.  Why not include these in your scrapbook pages to make them more unique?  If you are concerned about the items being acidic and wrecking your pages you can buy a spray by Krylon called, “Make It Acid-Free.”  I have used it on some items to ensure the safety of my pages.  One of my favorite things from a wedding to include in my scrapbooking is the invitation.  I can usually work it into the page with photos around it and then you also have all of the important journaling included on the invite.  The bride and groom, the date, the location, etc. are all on there so you don’t have to find a place to put all of that on your page.  I usually keep wedding invitations for just that reason until I complete the page(s) for a wedding so I can remember all of the details even if I choose not to use the invitation on a page.  This page is very simple yet elegant using the invitation in the middle and then placing the pictures around it.  I used some silver sticker letters and jeweled brads to make it a little more formal looking for the occasion.

I usually have too many pictures from events to choose from, but in this case it was a little different.  One of my husband’s cousins got married in Las Vegas and had a reception at home for family and friends to attend.  Since there wasn’t any of the wedding ceremony hoopla, I took one nice picture of the bride and groom at their reception.  They decided to wear the traditional wedding attire so I decided to use a black and white theme to go with their formal wear.  Also, the black really makes her white dress pop off of the page.  I kept it really simple with their names and date on a tag and then created a pull tab to be pulled out from behind their picture with the information about getting married in Las Vegas, that the bride is my husband’s cousin, etc.  So as you can see if you take just one good picture it can be turned into a nice, quick and easy scrapbook page.

Since Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, let’s take a look at doing scrapbooking for wedding photos.  I have a couple of albums of all of the weddings we have been to in the last fifteen years.  I thought keeping all of the wedding memories together in one album would make it easier to find them when wanting to look at them.  I don’t have to think, “okay what album did I put that in, and what year was it.”  A lot of times I refer to my albums when I can’t remember what year so and so got married and then I can look it up.  I try to get a few pictures at every wedding we attend but of course sometimes I get more at one than another so there is no set number of pages I use for one wedding.  I try to stick to a two page layout per wedding unless it is a close family member and then of course, you will have gobs more.  This week I will share some wedding pages and some ideas for titles for your wedding pages.