We see more and more couples making CDs of photos and music as favors.  Wedding websites, where you can post details of your wedding and photos of yourselves, are also becomming more popular.  Each of these adds a very personal touch to your wedding, and is a great way to to share highlights of your relationship with friends and family.  Your lives have probably moved through several stages in different places, and not everyone at your wedding may be familiar with how you first met, where you went to school, etc.

In a previous entry (http://www.bloomeryweddings.com/blog/OrganizingThosePhotosPart1.aspx), we looked at two programs to help you organize your photos, and turn them into a storybook you could burn onto a CD, or put on your website.  Microsoft, never to be outdone, has two programs you can download for free if you are a Windows XP user.

The first program is PhotoStory.  Now in its third version, PhotoStory allows you to make storybooks with your photos, complete with background music, narration, titles and captions.  You can also add a number of transition effects, and burn your storybooks to CD or put them on your website.  Since digital photos (from a camera or scanner) are typically very large when displayed on your screen, you can add all sorts of neat zoom and pan effects.  There is an overview of PhotoStory 3 at http://www.updatexp.com/microsoft-photo-story-3.html.

If you have a digital video camera, or if you can hook your VCR to your computer, you can use Movie Maker 2.1 to copy and edit your videos into movies.  There is a beginner's guide, examples and how-to's available at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx.

In order to download PhotoStory 3, Microsoft requires you to confirm your version of Windows XP is genuine--they will install a small program that checks your software, and anonymously reports back to Microsoft your installation code.  No worries, unless you bought your OS from that greasy guy on the corner of Times Square.  Movie Maker 2.1 is part of the Windows XP SP2 update, and there are instructions on the page linked above for getting the update.  Besides MovieMaker, the XP SP2 update will install some additional security features on your computer, including a pop-up blocker for Internet Explorer, and better security against spyware.