Wedding Guest Books

Aside from your wedding photos and that sliver of wedding cake for your first anniversary, there are only so many ways you can memorialise your nuptials after the fact. Enter alternative wedding guest books. Traditionally, couples have set up designated sign-in stations for friends and family to write sweet notes of congratulations, but standard guest books tend to get sidelined to a bookshelf or exiled into a lowly storage box (not the best way to reminisce on your big day). Now, though, couples are personalising this wedding detail by transforming it into a fun activity that makes it memorable for not only the couple but also the guests.

This blog post aims to bring you some alternative ideas to the guest book to help you think about personalising your own wedding.

• Globe-trotting couples, let your nearest and dearest make their marks on your own little world. Consider getting guests to leave messages on an old globe or get a blank one for the occasion.
• Cheese! Ditch the guest note route completely; instead, encourage wedding attendees to cosy up for the camera and leave their marks with a Polaroid selfie. Set up a station just for the task, and prepare for an overload of hilarious selfies.

• Cheers! Get guests to leave messages on corks that you can make into a  pinboard or heart shape. Or better yet get a massive bottle of wine or fizz and ask guests to leave a message in metallic markers. You can drink on your first anniversary and keep the bottle as a cute reminder.
• Shadow boxes that guests can fill with pre-cut timber shapes once they’ve written their message are becoming more and more popular.

• Timber! Love games? How about getting guests to leave messages on a Jenga set for a truly personalised games night.
• Music fans! Ask guests to write their messages on an old vinyl record that you can then frame.
• Bucket list. Ask guests to leave suggestions in a, well, bucket, for adventures the pair of you can carry out in your lifetime together.
• Eco-friendly. Ask guests to sign a terracotta or earthenware pot that you can then fill with succulents of other plants as a lasting reminder.
• Signing Frame. Make your guests messages part of your decor. Put a picture in the middle from your engagement shoot, if you had one. Or of the two of you and replace after the wedding with one of your favourite wedding images. (a group shot would be perfect!). Guests sign all around the photograph mount. Many wedding photographers including myself offer this type of product.

It is easy to get carried away and offer lots of options to guests. But that can be overwhelming for guests and you end up with lots of partially completed items. My advice is to pick one that suits your theme and you as a couple and really go for it!