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We Are Expecting a Baby: Telling the Great News via a Photo Book

We Are Expecting a Baby: Telling the Great News via a Photo Book


The arrival of a baby is one the most important events in a new family’s life. In fact, it’s so important we already talked about how you can properly document the first years of your little prince/princess or, if you want to it further, the entire pregnancy (in a pregnancy journal). If you want to be something even more creative, you can break the great news to the future grandparents, friends and acquaintances in a neat, yet surprising way: with a photo book.

What to avoid

Before we tell you what you can include in a pregnancy announcement photo book, it is best to discuss what you should avoid. The first thing is that this is not a pregnancy journal: it is its prequel. Therefore, you must not start this photo book with the ultrasound pictures of the infant or write out “I’m pregnant!” in huge letters on the front cover or on the very first page. The meaning of this photo book is to surprise the recipients in a subtle way, not to shove the news right in front of their faces.

How to break the news in photos

Now that the most important don’t is out of the way, let’s talk about the dos. The proper way of creating such a book is to include the pictures that capture the sweetest, funniest, most memorable moments in your lives and relationship. It’s a good way to start your photo book with pictures of you and your loved one from when you were a baby, toddler, teenager to a young adult. This way you can build up the story of how the new baby came to be, with some of the first pictures of the two of you together as a couple. The next chapters in your story could be your wedding, or the birth of your other child(ren). Once they’ve reached this point in your photo book, the viewers will already have a feeling that something is in the air, further building up the momentum.

Unlike in the case of many, regular photo bookscaptions are mandatory here. Imagine the following situation: the readers are going through the photos, reading the captions when suddenly, on the last pages they encounter something like “And now we are officially three” and turning the pages will reveal the ultrasound pictures or the positive pregnancy test. The surprise is immediate and perfect.

How the book should look

From a technical point of view, there are a few restrictions when you are creating this special type of photo book to emphasize its low-key nature (which is the overall purpose of this book to begin with). The first is the size: since the book is about surprising the recipients, it has to look as regular as possible; therefore go for smaller books (8×8 tops). The same rules should apply to the cover: it has to be simple, containing one photo and a title that doesn’t hint a thing.

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Going inside the book, you can do anything you want, provided that you use a simple style, a layout containing captions, and you follow the picture order mentioned in the previous paragraph. Still, try not to overcrowd the selected pictures on the photo book’s pages (1 or 2 pictures per page is more than enough), while the number of pages should be the minimum (usually around 20–30 pages).


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