Commemorative Books

Weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, memorials—you plan and anticipate for weeks, months, years. And then the day comes, and it goes by in a blur. You try to savor the moment, but it’s fleeting, hard to commit to memory, impressionistic. Of course, you never forget who got sloppy drunk and how much it rained. But there was so much more to the day than that, so much more than photos and video can record.

Privately published commemorative books are, more than any other type of memoir, the scrapbook taken to art form. With a commemorative book you get to be the sentimental scavenger, gathering the priceless ephemera of a milestone occasion—photographs, birth certificates, love letters, honorable discharge papers, homemade cards, ticket stubs, receipts, menus, immigration papers, first scribbles, first paystub—that together reveal the poetry of everyday life, its peaks and valleys, the evidence of loves and losses, blessings and hardships.

At SMALL BATCH BOOKS we custom design your commemorative book using a combination of your evocative artifacts (scanned and restored) to illustrate the event, as well as written stories, anecdotes, and memories (gathered from interviews we conduct with you and yours) to add information and inspiration to the visuals. Printed and bound, your commemorative book will honor the occasion and the events that led up to it, keeping it fresh in your memory, and making it come alive for future generations.

You can create and privately publish a commemorative book to mark any important occasion.

  • wedding anniversaries
  • company or family-business anniversaries
  • milestone birthdays (40th, 50th, 80th…)
  • a wedding
  • pregnancy & birth
  • bar/bat mitzvah, quinceanera, and other coming-of-age celebrations
  • school, club, and association anniversaries

Or, to mark a special occasion, you might also create and give the gift of:

  • a handmade children’s picture book
  • a little book of poetry

Contact us to discuss your custom keepsake book and let us provide you with a free estimate based on the unique aspects of your project.