Along with the photos and video, the wedding guest book is one of the treasured mementoes of your big day. After the honeymoon, it’s great to be able to sit back and read through the touching and fun messages that family and friends have written.
What form your guest book takes is one way of bringing your personal touch on the reception. It’s lovely to have a traditional guest book but it’s more fun to come up with an idea that serves the purpose. Collecting guests’ signatures in a guest book is all well and good but it will no doubt be left on a shelf gathering dust –read once and soon forgotten.
Love notes from family and friends
There are numerous unique wedding guest book ideas, so let’s look at a few.
Ask guests to write a note and post it into a piñata – a Mexican-style celebration container – that you can burst open on your first wedding anniversary as part of your celebrations and find lovely notes from family and friends.
Craft-minded brides could ask guests to sign quilt squares that will eventually be used to make a kitsch quilt. Another idea is a canvas guestbook that guests can sign using paint, markers or crayons – but everyone will have to be careful of their clothes!
Electronic messages a bit of fun
What about a bunting guest book in which messages can be written on your favourite fabric and then used and admired as bunting in your home? It would be an everlasting reminder of your wedding day.
The electronic route is always popular: put out an iPad or tablet for guests to leave messages. It’s a chance for a bit of fun if you know any budding comedians and a good way of capturing sentimental moments on video, especially if you don’t have a videographer.
For vintage or rustic style weddings, the perfect option is to hire or buy a vintage typewriter on which guests can type messages on good old-fashioned paper. These can go in a classic guest book jazzed up with montages of memorabilia from the big day.
If the bride loves flowers and the wedding theme is floral, how about making a charming keepsake book for signatures and decorate it with pressed flowers?
Bizarre but useful
An inexpensive idea that can double up as simple entertainment for children is asking guests to sign some large Jenga blocks. Another playful idea is to use blank jigsaw pieces to match the number of your guests and ask everyone to sign a piece with a sentimental note or message.
A more unusual idea is asking guests to sign flat pebbles or something useful for the garden such as a wooden swing. The signed swing can be a constant reminder of the highs and lows of a relationship and great for the kids to play on down the line.
For the avid travellers and adventurers, collect vintage postcards, luggage labels, and a stylish map for brightening up your guest book, or source a globe for people to sign with a message. Guests can suggest where you could travel next or guess where you will be going on your next big trip.
The wackiest idea is messages in a bottle: guests write words of wisdom for the future on slips of paper and these are then popped inside the bottle for the couple to open it up in a year or two’s time. You can then see who has come up with the most ridiculous suggestion and laugh about it.