In the previous blog entry, you may have learned about various options available for your wedding music and how to burn that music to your CD. Now that your CD is ready to play, you might want to spice it up with some graphics. This tutorial provides a number of options for your creative abilities, along with resources for free artwork and graphics.The template that you’ll want to use for your CD is the WL-5625 Full Face CD Label, shown here. When you scroll down that label page, you’ll learn that you have various options in the download for the free template. You have choices in:

• Microsoft Word Template: For use in any version of Microsoft Word.
• PDF Template: Viewable using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Template can be used in graphic programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Quark Express, and several others. If you plan to print out the template you need to uncheck “fit to page” in the print options or the image will be smaller than actual size.
• Sure Thing Template: For use in the Micro Vision Development Sure Thing Office Labeler. You can read our review of the Sure Thing Office Labeler and learn how to download a free 30 day demo by clicking here.
• Print Shop Template: For use with Print Shop.
• Label Matrix Template: For use with Label Matrix.
• EPS Template
• OpenOffice v1.1 Template: Download free blank label templates in .stw file format for Open Office Writer version 1.1x. Open Office templates work with Open Office Writer v1.1 on Linux and other operating systems including Windows.
• OpenOffice v2.0 Template: Download free blank label templates in .ott file format for Open Office Writer version 2.0. Open Office templates work with Open Office Writer v2.0 on Linux and other operating systems including Windows.

While you can open and work with these templates in any given program, I chose the PDF file to open in PhotoShop. Don’t worry if you do not have Photoshop, as you can use Gimp. Gimp is a free download art and graphics program that allows users almost as much freedom as Photoshop.

If you feel you are not artsy in any way, you can enlist a friend to help you design your CD. But, it always helps to pave the way for the progress of your CD so your friend (or you) is not overwhelmed with choices and decisions. In other words, you need to pick out the artwork you want to use, and you need to decide on the colors to use as well.

Designing Your CD

First, your CD is for you and for your friends. You are not selling it, as that would violate copyright laws for most music as well as for most artwork. This is a memento, so you want it to reflect your time in space with this wedding.

Use colors that you are using in the wedding. If your colors are purple and yellow, then look for designs that contain purple and yellow. That said, some designs lend themselves to alteration, and you or your friend can alter colors in the art program to reflect the colors in your wedding.

Some resources for free wedding-related artwork include:

• Wedding Clipart: This site includes small images, most of them consisting of line drawings. Line drawings are easy to use, and lend themselves to changing colors easily, too.
• Anne’s Wedding Gifs & Backgrounds: A bit more sophisticated, these images contain some photographs and backgrounds to use on your CD.
• CoolClips: More line art and some more sophisticated graphics, free to use.
• Original Country Clipart by Lisa: This page contains clipart with a country flair.

Another resource, which is not free but just costs the price of a cup of coffee, is iStockphoto. You will need to register to use this site, but it may be worth your effort. Choose among hundreds of photographs, artwork and graphics for that CD label and download it to your hard drive. You can use other stock photography sites as well, but I’ve learned that iStock carries a wide variety and the prices are minimal compared to other stock photo sites.

Paying a small price for an image that can be replicated might be up your alley, especially if you want a professional look. The issue with the free image sites is that their images are small, and when you enlarge them to fit on the CD label, those images may need some work to make them look good again. Using a larger image that can be used without enlarging it is the way to go. In fact, most images look better when they are reduced a touch.

The image above shows the number of options at your fingertips at iStock. Once you decide on an image, you have a choice of the size you want to download to use. While it would benefit you to download the largest image, the prices may become prohibitive to you. The size of the CD label is a little under 5″, so choose an image that is about the same size. In the case of iStock, which measures images in pixels, that size might be the “small,” which averages around 650-693 pixels at least on one side. You want to shoot for a somewhat square image with that size.

I chose the wedding rings to work with, and the download the small size at 693×693 pixels. After loading it into the PDF template, I add a few lines to show that the music on this CD is the music for Kay and Brian’s reception. Nothing fancy, just a few lines that show which music is on this CD:

Uh-oh. I can hear it now. Kay is moaning, because their wedding rings are silver. No worries. If you are working in Photoshop or Gimp, simply turn down the saturation, and that gold will turn to silver:

This is a simple, easy-to-create and (almost) free option to creating a label for your wedding music CD. Note that the purple color is there simply to help the white CD stand out. You can alter the background colors to the CD and use other images, too. But, why complicate the artwork when you have so many other things to do? Simple, strong images that help the type stand out also helps the legibility of that type, making it easy to read.

Your family, friends and guests will cherish this gift from you, a gift filled with love and romantic music.

A wedding isn’t a wedding without music. From the pre-wedding gathering of guests to the reception, you might have an idea about the music you want to enjoy and that you want for your guests to enjoy. This tutorial walks you through gathering that music and creating a CD that you can play for each phase of your wedding.

To avoid any copyright violations for CDs that you wish to make for your wedding, you should not download bootlegged music from the Internet. iTunes, one of the most trusted music download sites on the Internet, offers a wide variety of music for pennies on the song, and you can add songs you select from this site to your wedding collection. Their selections are divided into music from the 90s, classical music, iTunes DJ music and more.

You also can use sites that are technology-specific, such as the music found for a Zune. You can find a wide range of available music for Zune, from rock to soundtracks and from world music to Christian or gospel sounds.

You can use the following sites to purchase CDs that contain wedding music. The only problem with this solution is that the CD might contain music that you do not want nor need. But, if the price is reasonable to you, you might find music that is both suitable and to your taste. Plus, you can get ideas from these sites about how you want to conduct your music throughout your wedding day.

This list is in alphabetical order to show that we do not prefer one site over another:

• My Wedding Music: Download the songs listed here or order the CD for reasonable prices.
• Royalty Free Music: This link leads to this site’s “Weddings and Romance Series,” which contains a variety of CDs for your selection.
• T Carter Music: This site offers new and original wedding music and dance songs in CD, Mp3, downloads and sheet music.
• Team Wedding Reception Music: Go through this list to get an idea of the music you might like for your reception.
• Team Wedding Wedding Ceremony Music: This list offers softer, classical choices for your wedding.
• The Sounds of Love: Chose from custom songs, CDs, MP3 and more through this site.
• Weddings & Reflections: This 2 CD set features rich, live instrumentation, authentic music genres, and superbly written scores.
• Wedding Music: Listen to these clips to learn more about what you might want to choose. The music is conveniently divided into songs for the prelude, the processional, the interlude, the unity ceremony and the recessional.
• Wedding Songs: Use this site to learn more about wedding music choices for everything from the ceremony to ethnic selections.

Wedding ceremony music tends to be softer and, often, more classical. You should choose about five to ten songs for the prelude, depending upon when you want to start the music (usually twenty minutes to 1/2 hour before the processional). Choose two songs for the processional — one for the bridesmaids’ entrance, and one for the bride to walk down the aisle. The recessional usually contains more joyous music, as the bride and groom now are married as they leave the church.

Receptions are open to the atmosphere you want to create. Usually, the reception begins with gentle background music as guests arrive to wait on the bride and groom. The wedding party is introduced with a certain theme, and each event during the reception can be emphasized with music, such as the cake cutting, the garter toss, the bouquet toss and the first dances and dances with parents.

But, all of this is tradition, and you may want to shape that tradition to your tastes, or throw tradition out the window altogether. This is YOUR day, your wedding and your music!

How To Make Your CDs

After you’ve chosen the songs you want to play, you need to sync them to your computer so that you can arrange the songs in the order that you want. Depending upon the type of computer you own (Windows or Mac). With Windows, you can either use Windows Media Player (instructions) to burn your CD or use Windows XP, which has built-in CD burning software.

If you own a Mac OS 9, you can learn how to burn your CD here, or search for the instructions on how to burn a CD according to the type of computer you own.

In all cases, you will need to own a recordable disc drive in your computer, and use CDs that are CD-R or CD-RW. The CD-R is for the final CD, as it cannot be overwritten. The CD-RW is great for burning the CD and making sure that you don’t have any skips, overlaps or spaces between music that you do not want.

Once you have burned your CD or multiple CDS, you can use Worldlabel’s blank printable CD Labels for laser and inkjet printers to label those discs. Don’t know what to put on those labels or how to accomplish that feat? Next week, I’ll show you how to create a great wedding CD label that will be easy and cheap (maybe, even free).