Post # 1
Member
1680 posts
Bumble bee
Hi bees! Long story short, my mom and I were talking about the “little things” I should think about for my “miscellaneous” budget for the wedding, and the guest book came up. I really love the idea of a guest book, but I know myself too well – that thing will go into a box after the wedding and never see the light of day again. It just seems like a waste of money to me if it’s going to end up like that.
I really want a guest-book-like experience for my guests, but I want it to be something that I can keep out, maybe on the fireplace or something, as just a nice reminder of how enormous our familes are (250 people) – and how loved we are. I can’t really think of any ideas, but I’m inherently not a very creative person.
Did anyone have a different type of experience for their guest book? What did you do? Thanks for input!
Post # 2
Member
1278 posts
Bumble bee
I did a globe. It’s awesome and displayed on a shelf in our home!
This was the backup plan. I bought a giant wooden letter “N” (DH’s surname) and stained it. But I liked it so much as is, I put it on display over our fireplace.
Here’s ours. It was a globe given to me as a kid by my godfather. Globes aren’t used much anymore but it was a nice way to bring some new life into a sentimental object that was just collecting dust.
Post # 3
Member
1680 posts
Bumble bee
eurasianbee : GASP I LOVE that!!!! It means even more, because we will be moving across the country 🙂 Wow, amazing!
Post # 4
Member
516 posts
Busy bee
We did an actual guest book, but we made it on shutterfly and included pictures from our engagement shoot and other pictures we’ve taken over the years. I like it because we can keep it out to look at pictures as well as what people wrote to us.
Post # 5
Member
869 posts
Busy bee
We’re doing an actual guest book because we have a photo booth, so we’ll have them glue the pictures in our book. But we also found these gorgeous watercolor paintings on Etsy that are made for guest books! They do city skylines and then people sign it, and then you hang it up in your house! You can search Etsy and there are hundreds of different styles similar to this one:
Post # 6
Member
12 posts
Newbee
So I will never read through a guestbook, like you it would go in a box and that would be the end. I also did not want to display one, I know a lot of people do but I’m very particular about home decor and didn’t want everyone’s sloppy writing visible in my house. I thought about not having one at all but now am leaning towards doing Jenga pieces. This way we get a nice little reminder of our wedding on a game night. Also, if I lose Jenga pulling out my favorite Aunt’s piece I can call her up and tease her about making me lose 🙂
Post # 7
Member
2917 posts
Sugar bee
We got a huge bottle of red wine and had people sign it, plan was to save it for our one year anniversary.
Post # 8
Member
1680 posts
Bumble bee
Oh my goodness what a bunch of amazing ideas! I can check out Etsy – I didn’t think to check there! The problem for me will be the size – there are more than 200 people coming. Most are families, but it’s about 70-80 families….
Post # 9
Member
2463 posts
Buzzing bee
This was ours. Sorry if the pic is huge. You can customize it with the names and dates and the colors. It’s hanging on our wall in our home. It’s nice because you can’t really see the signatures until you are very close to it so it just looks like normal artwork, but we live it and its a nice memory.
I don’t remember exactly where we got it from but I do remember they had TONs of options or artwork to chose from and you got to pick how big/how many people you needed room for on it.
Post # 10
Member
413 posts
Helper bee
I just went to a wedding where they had a very creative alternative to the guest book. They had a few tree display stands (example below) decorated with lights, and every guest was given a small slip of parchment, about the size of a fortune cookie paper. The guest’s name was already printed on one side of the paper, and on the other side, the guest wrote their well wishes for the couple. Then they tied their paper to the tree with ribbon. I thought it was very clever and sweet!
Post # 11
Member
704 posts
Busy bee
- Wedding: August 2012 - Iowa
Darling Husband and I got engaged the night of a Little Big Town concert, and got a autographed album from them. We used the record sleeve as our guestbook at the reception…
It would be neat to do the same with an album of your first dance song /artist?
Post # 13
Member
47194 posts
Honey Beekeeper
There are guestbook alternatives where guests sign a wood cutout and then drop it in a vase, wood box, or other container.
Post # 14
Member
738 posts
Busy bee
cypresstree85 : we did that, we got a real beech tree for ours and tags – I wish I’d put people’s names on the tags though as soang aren’t signed by people!
I decided a traditional guest book wasn’t for me – so many I see where people skip pages, don’t sign it properly, it doesn’t get completed so loads of empty pages… My plan is to display the tags somehow (or put them in a book!) And plant the tree. If you’re in the UK, ours came from M&S with tags for £50 which is about the price I’ve seen of fake ones
We considered the Jenga one, and a canvas too but again I was worried nobody would sign it and it would look weird, but we had a surprising uptake on wishes on the wishing tree
Post # 15
Member
2679 posts
Sugar bee
- Wedding: September 2012 - Southern California
We are big sports fans so we had our guests “autograph” baseballs for us which we now have displayed in a case. 🙂
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