Anniversary photo book with a page for every year
Choose a page per year or a few milestone chapters. List the years first, match photos and dated objects to them, and record uncertain dates rather than forcing a complete timeline.
A page per year sets the size of the book: a 25th anniversary is 25 pages plus an opening and a close, and a 40th is 40. Decide early whether that is the book or whether some years share.
A partner, friend or relative can collect the material. Decide whose anniversary the book records and which date it counts from before asking others for photos.
Make your photobook
Arrange your photos on A4 pages, check the proof and order a printed copy.
Questions to send relatives with their years
- Which of these years do you have photos from?
- Where were they living that year?
- What work were they doing that year?
- Which holiday or trip do you remember from that year?
- Who was born, married or moved in that year?
- Do you have a ticket, card or letter dated to that year?
- Who is in your photo, and where was it taken?
- Can you send a scan or phone photo of the print by our closing date?
Map the years before the photos
Write a list of every year with one line each: where they lived, what work they did, who was born or arrived. Fill it in from memory before opening any album.
Then sort the photos into those years. It quickly shows which years are full and which have one faded print or nothing at all.
Beside each year, note the file or keepsake, who identified it and whether the date is confirmed or approximate. This keeps a guess from becoming a printed fact.
Years with few photos
Some years have many photos and others few. Let the available material set the space; use milestone chapters instead if an equal page per year forces too much filler.
Use whatever dates the year instead: a ticket, a house listing, a car, a school report, a postcard. A photo of the object taken now is fine if the caption says so.
Two thin years can share a page split across the middle. Put both years in the heading so the count still adds up.
Collecting for a parents' anniversary
Give each sibling, aunt, uncle and old friend a set of years to look for, rather than asking everyone for everything. People search a decade more carefully than a whole marriage.
Set a collecting deadline after checking the time needed for scanning, proofing and your chosen delivery route. Allow another proof round instead of treating six weeks as a guarantee.
For a surprise, ask the people who already hold the photos for copies. Borrow albums only with the owner's agreement, and track which originals must be returned.
One layout, repeated
Put the year as a large number in the same corner of every page, so the book can be opened at any year and read from there.
Use one main photo per page and a smaller second where the year has one. A strict pattern makes the full years and the thin years look equal.
Steps
Year one
The wedding photo or the first photo together, large, with the year as the heading and the first shared address underneath.
A full year
The best photo of that year large, one smaller beside it, and one line of facts: home, work, who arrived.
Two thin years on one page
Split the page across the middle. Each half gets its year, one photo or dated object, and its own line of facts.
This year
A recent photo of the two of them, taken specially if there is no good one, with the anniversary number as the heading.
Questions
Do I need a photo for every year?
No. A ticket, a letter or a place photographed today can stand for a year if the caption says what it is. Two thin years can also share a page.
How far ahead should I start for a parents' anniversary?
Start by asking the contributors and checking proof and delivery times. Work back from those actual constraints; a family collection with missing years may need longer than a short digital book.
What if they were together before they married?
Choose which date the book counts from and say so on the first page. Earlier years can go in a short section before year one.