Artisan State Review: Wedding Album 2015

We got out wedding photos (like finally) in April, but we didn't get to make the album until much later because there was quite a bit of editing to do on the photos, especially the banquet photos where the lighting was just terrible.

We bought some credits from Artisan State during their Black Friday sale last year. There was a 25% discount then. We absolutely loved their quality of work with our engagement shoot album so we decided to use them for our wedding album as well. See my review here.

I took quite awhile to design the album as we had heaps of photos to go through. We placed our order on Sunday and got our album on Thursday that very week! We were so, so impressed with the speed at which they worked at and again, at the quality of the album. Super worth it!

Our album was 12" X 16" with 50 pages. It is heavy as! We also bought a presentation case to store the album in. It was pretty neat but more of that later.

I chose a flush mount album with genuine leather in white, with a large cameo window. In their album design tool, the leather was shown as white but the actual album was actually more yellowish, like a cream color. I would have preferred a pure white cover but cream is fine too.

Thick, rigid, high quality pages. The printing was excellent too with no changes/differences in colors.

Here's the presentation box, it's a simple black box made with hand-stitched leatherette. The box is also double-walled for maximum protection, and the inside was made of some soft, furry material as well.

Love the beautiful stitching! BUT BUT BUT I was quite disappointed because when the album is inside the box, the lid wouldn't close properly! See below for picture:

The box can carry our engagement shoot album perfectly as it was only about 20-something pages thick but our wedding album at 50 pages is significantly thicker. I do think that they should either make the box slightly bigger or at least describe the maximum number of pages a book can have before it would not fit. 

Anyway, here are just a few "configurations" of our album, just a few pages:

Artisan State is definitely my go-to company for all my printing needs from now on. Despite the little hiccup with the presentation box that wouldn't fit properly, I still think that they do good quality albums/frames at very reasonable prices. Even their shipping fees are so low (our wedding album weighs a ton but express shipping by DHL was only $20). More importantly, they print crazy fast which is super great for impatient people like myself.

Artisan State Review: Pre-Wedding Shoot Album 2014

Update (1 June 2015): New entry on my wedding (actual day) album is now up! Click here to read more.

Our pre-wedding album (engagement shoot) arrived 2 days ago, we got it made at Artisan State, a printing company based in the States (but they print in Shanghai, China). Our (overpriced) bridal package in Singapore does include a large album of the shoot that we did back home but since we really disliked how most of the photos turned out in addition to the layout of the album bring pretty dated, we decided to go ahead and make our own album instead.

We made a landscape 12 X 16 inch flush mount album and combined our photos from the our Aussie shoot as well as a few good ones from our Singapore shoot. We designed the entire album ourselves using the design tool provided by them. The design tool was easy and fun to use. Here are the specifications of our album:

- Genuine calf leather in the color "expresso"
- Lustre-printed (e-surface)
- 1.3mm thick pages
- Landscape cameo
- A total of 26 pages

The whole album cost us USD$300. We placed our order on Sunday and received our album via DHL express on Friday that same week! Shipping was only an additional USD$10.

Overall, I am very impressed with Artisan State. The quality of the prints and the leather is impeccable. Although the image in the cameo of the album arrived a little dented (not too obvious), they quickly remedied the issue by sending us a re-print of the album without much fuss. Because it was during the Black Friday sale period, we bought USD$660 worth of store credits but paid only USD$500. This will be for our actual day wedding shots. I predict there should be more than 26 pages in that one, heh.

So here are few shots of our new album:

The pebbled leather was super smooth and supple to the touch. Love it!

I didn't take too many shots of the other pages but for a rough idea, I've included preview images taken from the Artisan State online design tool:

I've yet to find out whether the spine of the album can withstand the constant flipping done by guests prior to the commencement of the wedding ceremony. I guess I'll find out then! But till then, I think will keep my faith in Artisan State.