We should all know by now the immense value of investing in a good wedding photographer. But for those of you not yet married, have you considered how those photographs will be accessed?
Will it be in a traditional album, or via a USB stick, will it be via an online gallery or on a CD delivered to your house? It’s important you check your options and consider what will work best for you. And when you do, please take into consideration this next, genius idea I’m about to present to you.
Bow & Arbour entered our radar a few months back after asking to join our Little Book wedding directory. We instantly obliged and did a little fan-girl dance because this is is the super cool kind of brand we love to recommend to our community. Bow & Arbour, you see, create the most beautiful and stylish ‘wedding zines‘ for modern couples. That’s an actual magazine version of the traditional photo album, in case you were wondering.
Bow and Arbour is the creation of Sammy and James, a lovely couple based on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Their super cool wedding zines feature up to 400 photos from your day, unlimited wording and you receive multiple copies for the same price as a traditional wedding photo album so they’re perfect to gift to your nearest and dearest.
“Bow and Arbour arose from a genuine problem we had when it came to finding a high-quality but functional wedding album,” says Sammy. “We had invested in a great photographer and we needed to find a way to do her 1,500 photos justice. After months of wracking our brains, the wedding zine concept was conceived.”
And it’s an absolutely great concept. Firstly, the zines give you the ability to feature up to 400 of your favourite wedding photos so you can really tell the story of your day without having to ruthlessly cull lots of your favourite shots. I also love the fact that you can include as much wording as you want so you’ve got a place to record those memories before they start to fade.
“Our initial customers raved about a wedding album that had finally moved into the age of digital photography,” says James. “So often, couples end up with more than 1,000 edited photos and our zines let you showcase more images than a traditional album.”
“Also, and importantly, our couples love the quality of the zines themselves. They’re great coffee table pieces, which means visitors to your home will actually look through your wedding album.”
I love that idea. I know that I can’t wait to see my wedding photos and I want them to be seen, not tucked away. With Bow & Arbour, you just know that your photos are going to look great – Sammy and James worked in the graphic design and wedding industries for a decade before they launched Bow & Arbour and all their products are creative and wonderfully professional.
The look of the zines themselves has a vibe that reminds me of iconic and stylish magazines that’s just effortlessly stylish.
“I’d describe our signature style as bespoke, inclusive, friendly, thorough and reliable,” says Sammy. “But perhaps most importantly, we’re both storytellers. We both spend a lot of time behind the camera, reading, writing, editing and travelling to remote locations as we also have the privilege of running a not-for-profit conservation tourism company. All of this definitely keeps the creative juices flowing and we hope that shines through in the zines that we design for our couples.”
Bow & Arbour’s zines are also clearly priced and they get cheaper the more you order. So, for a standard 200-page wedding zine, 2 copies are £670 (£335 per copy), 5 copies are £835 (or £167 per copy) and 10 copies are £1045, which equates to just £105 per copy. The prices include design and layout, revisions, printing and production and there’s free shipping on orders over £700.
I can’t think of a better way to share the story of your day in an extraordinarily modern and stylish way. It’s safe to say that I’ve definitely saved these details!
To find out more about Bow & Arbour’s altogether brilliant wedding zines, just take a look at their website. You can also check out their Google reviews here.
Love,
Annabel x
Tamryn Settle View all Tamryn's articles
Self-confessed wedding addict Tamryn spends her days in her Berkshire studio writing about all things beautiful and romantic with her black Labrador for company.
