Your wedding album is one of the most important elements of your wedding and will be a lasting reminder of your special day that you will be able to enjoy for many years after the day. Wedding albums also often become family heirlooms, being passed on from one generation to next, and form an important part of a family's history.

In the vast majority of cases wedding albums contain a fairly set series of pictures starting with perhaps some studio portrait photographs taken on the morning of the wedding (or perhaps a few days before the event) before moving on to a number of posed photographs taken outside the church and finishing up with a selection of photographs taken at the wedding reception. In some cases couples will also include pictures from the honeymoon at the back of their wedding album.

So what can you do to ensure that you have a unique wedding album?

Well, the first thing to consider is whether your album should contain only pictures from your wedding day itself or should be a complete record of the event starting with your engagement and including a complete photographic record of the whole process of planning your wedding. How about including pictures of some of the alternative venues you considered, the dresses you tried and rejected and the cakes you considered but decided against?

Another idea is to include items other than simply photographs, such as copies of your wedding invitation, the order of service from the church and even the caterer's bill.

Yet another idea is to ask you guests to sign a sheet, perhaps as they enter the reception room, or to write a short message for you which can then be included in your album.

And how about asking your guests to help with the wedding photos? Distribute a number of “instant" cameras amongst the guests and ask them to take a couple of photographs each and to pass the camera along. You can even ask them to take as many pictures as they like to take home as souvenirs as long as for every picture that they take home with them they take at least one other picture which they leave with you.

This list of ways in which you can create a unique wedding album is very long and is really only limited by the number of ideas that you can come up with. The most important thing to remember though is that there is no set format to a wedding album which, at the end of the day, is your personal memento of the day. So, the more you can include in your unique wedding album the more you will have to enjoy in the years ahead and to pass on to your children.