How to Protect Your Wedding Album

After my post about how our wedding album pages were sticking together and ripping, I got in touch with AdoramaPix to find out what the problem was and what I could do about it. Because they are awesome, they offered to reprint our book for me at no charge. (I paid the shipping for the new book, and I also bought a protective box for $7.95 when I placed the re-order.) I was very impressed with their customer service — they offered to help me get the book re-ordered immediately and were great at communicating with me via e-mail, and even though the new book was scheduled to arrive on June 25, it actually arrived several days earlier.

Their rep, Libby, also made a few suggestions as to how I could prevent my album from getting damaged again, since things like humidity in the air can affect the pages (and I live in a very humid state). So since I know several of ya'll also have photo books from AdoramaPix, I wanted to share a few ways you can protect your albums so this won't happen to you!

Oooh, ahhh. Brand new album in its protective box.

Don't keep them in a heavy-traffic area.
We always kept ours out on the coffee table in the living room, because I loved it when people would come over, see it and want to look at our wedding pictures. Maybe that's kind of self-centered of me, but I love looking through it and I know sometimes other people do too — when I go to friends' houses and see their albums, I always want to flip through them.

We spend most of our time in the living room, so there was a lot of risk potential for the book getting damaged by keeping it on the coffee table. Having the book in a location that's not heavily trafficked means less risk of spilling something on it, grubby fingers, or accidentally damaging it yourself.

Protective tissue paper too. Fancy!

Don't leave them out 24/7.
Guilty. It didn't move from the coffee table for over two years, and look where that got me. So when Libby suggested I get a protective box to store the new one in, it made sense to me. The box I ordered is very nice, solid and thick, and it helps keep moisture in the air away from the book. That way when it is being stored, it won't get damaged by things like, oh, humidity. From now on, I'm going to keep it probably in the office, and only bring it out when guests are coming in or when we want to look through it.

Store them horizontally.
I did something right! I'm not sure why keeping the books flat is better for them than storing them standing up, but I'll bet it has to do with making sure the spine stays strong. I'll have to change the way I store my other albums, since those are all standing up on my bookshelf. (In addition to our wedding album, I also have albums of our engagement photos and my bridal portraits, though they were cheaper albums bought through other printing companies.)

How do you store your albums?