Featured Wedding Ideas!

Guest Books

A Bride’s wish for her wedding to be unique has become really important in the last decade.  Individualism and self-expression are definitely driving forces behind the creative genius of many brides, wedding planners, and even the mothers of brides today.  As you are growing up and watching all these other weddings, you come to realize that you don’t just want to be “that wedding we were forced to go to”, or for all your guests to remember about your day is the “dry chicken”.  I’ve heard it from many weddings, and I did not want to be that wedding!  At my wedding we had a bunch of cool little things to make our wedding special to us and hopefully more memorable for our guests. 

The guest book happened to be one of the fun and different things we did.  I have to write a disclaimer in here, that the guest book for my wedding was almost the sole creative genius of my mother, who has planned many events, and has a real knack for it!  She came up with the idea of a photo booth, instead of a traditional guest book! Guests would hop into the photo booth, take a couple goofy or serious pictures, hop out again and sign the guest book.  The object for the guest book was to put pictures at the front of an album of us, the couple, and then to have a bunch of blank pages in the back for guests to tape their picture and sign next to it with a personal message.  We had my aunt, who is an avid "scrap-booker"  do one of the photo booth books and my mom did another.  We filled up all the pages!

It was creative and hilarious looking back!  We have the album in our living room now, and it’s really neat to take a peak and remember the funny things that some people came up with…and OH boy did we have the interesting comments!  It helped us to get to know our guests on a more individual level without the pressure of putting serious thoughts/words in a traditional guest book.

If photo booths aren’t your thing, here are some other ideas that might inspire you!

1. If you can get your hands on a Polaroid camera, have someone take shots of guests as they walk into the reception hall.  Then, have them sign it and stick it in your guest book!

2.  Another thing I heard of is to bring along fabric pieces, and sharpies, or colorful marker to make a quilt.  Have your guest write something personal or their well wishes on one of the pieces of cloth and put it in a small basket.  Later, you can have the “quilting bee” of your family put it together for you to hang on your wall as a keepsake!  My mother-in-law did this for us at our rehearsal dinner, and we thought it was really a fun way to get the guest involved.  Keep in mind that this one probably works best for smaller parties!

3.  A different approach is to have a canvas, or some cool material that the guest could sign and comment on.  You could then frame it and also hang it on the wall.  If you leave a few sections blank you can put a couple of your pictures in there to add to the aesthetic nature of this new piece of artwork!  This is kind of a spin-off of the quilt idea, without quite as much work!

4.  At my friend’s wedding a few years back, all the guests were given a piece of paper in the mail, along with their invitation, to decorate, sign, and comment on how they wish.  This was really cool; it was like a mini-coloring contest for guests!  My friends and I all brought ours to the wedding and stuck it in the guest book with pride, we were so excited!  

If you have any other neat guest book ideas that you have seen, feel free to comment and let us know!