Weddings - what instead of an album?

Say that I'm dissatisfied with the photo albums available in my country. The ones I can afford are ugly, and the ones I like are too expensive. I'm looking for another way of handing my photos to the Couple - something more interactive, less expensive and more flexible.

A well-known photographer in Poland is giving her customers a box with all the prints in it. She just puts the pictures inside a giftbox, no album whatsoever. I'm thinking if this is the way to go.

Would it be better to give the customers bigger prints in a box, instead of smaller prints put into an album? I could even invest a few dollars in a wooden box, that would look a lot better + would be more durable. What are your opinions, fellow photographers?

I stopped offering print packages because a pile of prints is so underwhelming compared with a professionally produced album. What's your budget for an album?

Tim can i ask, where do you get your albums done?

www.queensberry.com - pretty high end albums, but they're fantastic. Plus they're in New Zealand, and so am I, but they ship worldwide and have reps in quite a few countries the - US, Canada, and the UK for sure.

Well, my whole budget (meaning price) is about 600$, including prints and album. I'm using albums in which i have to manually glue photos to the pages. Photobooks (with photos printed into pages) are not so popular here yet...

How much do you suggest I should spend on the album?

Where is here?

Here is Poland, Europe.

Well, I read where another photographer gives his clients their shots on an ipod itouch instead of an album. It's about half the price of an upscale album and there's no worries about digital reproductions because the shot are automatically downsized when the itouch uploads them.

How about making them prints and a slideshow DVD/CD? Maybe with a little intro page/music/etc.