There are countless hassle-free, clever ways to make your guest book reflect your personality, relationship, and wedding style. Here are ten ideas for an extra-special keepsake to savor long after the party's over.
1. Create an Heirloom
The key is to have lots of pages -- allow your guests plenty of room to get mushy. One couple we know plans to bring out their guest book at their 50th anniversary party, so guests can record their thoughts in the original book. Then, the couple will start a family tradition by passing the guest book on to their children.
2. Moving Images
Appoint a guest book "captain" -- someone who will drop by each table with your book to ask specifically for contributions. Have the captain approach close friends first -- give them magic markers and ask them to draw pictures. Other guests will be inspired to follow their example.
3. Memory Lane
When you send invitations, include an insert asking guests to bring a picture of themselves with you (or both of you). Ask them to paste the photo into your guest book and describe the scene, or write about their favorite memory of you. In the end, you'll travel a whirlwind path that takes you from Cub Scouts to the office Christmas party to your first concert to last year's Fourth of July bash -- and all the delicious moments in between.
4. Say Cheese!
Appoint a friend or family member to snap a Polaroid of each guest arriving at your wedding. Guests can attach the pictures to a blank guest book page with a glue stick, tape, or adhesive corners (available at office-supply stores). Personalized messages can then be scrawled beside the photos.
5. Live & Uncut
Have guests express their wishes
live to your videographer and forgo the whole book concept. Pros: tear-filled eyes, cute kid stuff, knee-slapping sentiments. Cons: slurred words and shy relatives.
6. Keeping the Theme
Is yours a period wedding? Use a feather quill and inkwell in lieu of pen and holder. For a beach wedding, get a guest book with a seashell motif, or have tiny shells on hand for guests to glue onto blank pages. Will your theme hone in on sports? Paste up trading cards onto the pages. Your guests' messages will read like autographs. Will the wedding be Irish to a "T"? One word: green (the cloth cover, the pages, the ink...) and don't forget shamrocks.
7. Make Your Own
Here's a risk-free way to add a drop of do-it-yourself to your wedding day. Offer pages of loose stationery for your guests to personalize, and have them bound later in a beautiful book. You also can purchase an inexpensive album or scrapbook with a plain cover -- decorate it with photos, postcards, drawings, or attach a blown-up copy of your invitation. For the ultimate self-made guest book, design and create the whole thing yourselves. Check out our
easy-as-pie instructions for details.
-- The Knot
See More: Wedding Reception Ideas
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ivorywedding
We did the photo album guest book too but used cards for people to write messages. It was nice because no one had to "man" the table. Guests just wrote on the cards in their leisure. www.blueskypapers.com/
Sunny142
My fiance and I are having our wedding just a few days before Christmas, so we're taking our favorite christmas book and having the guests sign the pages. This will be meaningful for us because we'll take it out every christmas and use it as a coffee table book. As a tradition we can read through the story as well as the well-wishes and advice from our family and friends. I think that this will be more personal than just a blank book that we probably won't ever look at again.
abby.m
We did the same as lindsaynf, but we used Blurb. We used one side of the page as a picture page and the other for guests to sign. We used baby pictures up to engagement pictures and added extra pages in the back to list our gifts and who they came from. If you're already scanning in/collecting pictures for a slide show or other project, this becomes a very simple project that gets more people to sign your book.
abby.m
We did the same as lindsaynf, but we used Blurb. We used one side of the page as a picture page and the other for guests to sign. We used baby pictures up to engagement pictures and added extra pages in the back to list our gifts and who they came from. If you're already scanning in/collecting pictures for a slide show or other project, this becomes a very simple project that cause more people to sign your book.
lindsaynf
i was able to make ours at shutterfly.com using our epics. it looks pretty awesome, and will serve double duty as a epic photo album after the wedding!