There are a ton of out-of-the-box guest book ideas out there. I'm not going to summarize them here, but all it takes is a quick google search to find them. (Things like fingerprint trees, wine bottles, wooden benches, and tons of other options that aren't a simple book to sign.) I haven't posted before contemplating the type of guestbook we were going to use, because I knew exactly what I wanted, a photo guestbook.
I had scanned photos months ago and most were just sitting on my computer waiting to be used. But when I saw that snapfish had their photobooks on sale at 50% off, I realized now was the time to make it happen. In one day I had the guestbook ordered, and this arrived within the week.
Technically this is the back of the packaging. The cutout hole originally had a sticker bar code on it, but with it removed you can see the black leather cover of the actual book.
I started the book using the same photo from the STDs, which is also on the wedding website, and will probably be making more appearances.
From that I featured a few family wedding photos.
Here you can see the boy's parents on the left on mine on the right. And what you'll also hopefully notice is all the white room I left for signatures.
From there I moved onto photos of us growing up. Here you can see that I did include a few lined pages as well. And I ended with pictures of the two of us together.
Honestly, my biggest regret with this is that I waited to Sunday, the last day of the sale to format everything, instead of doing it on Saturday and giving myself a full 24 hours to actually order it. Instead the day after I hit purchase, I started to go through the pictures that didn't make it into the book and realized I had left out a few of my favorites. Of course I had around 300 hundred photos to choose from, and only 100 or so made it into the book. So no matter what I would have to leave photos out. But I think that if I had waited a day I would have been at least a little happier with the photos that had to be left out.
The only other minor issue I have, is that I made the lines to sign on a little too big. I could have easily doubled the number of lines per page, but I guess it'll work great for people with large handwriting.
Even with these hiccups, I'm still in love with our guestbook and keep looking through just to see it again. Hopefully our guest enjoy it as well, and if they love it only half as much as me, I think I'll have succeeded. At this point, the only thing left to do, is decide what type of pen I want people to use when signed.
Do you think I should have our guests sign using black ink, or colored ink that matches our color scheme? And what's your favorite type of guestbook?
This is SUCH a great idea, I really love it, and may borrow it someday! I'd have them all sign in black ink, so that same "look" is carried through.
ReplyDeleteMy sister is doing a fingerprint tree. They are doing the tree theme, as they were on the save the dates, and will be on the invitations as well.
That turned out great! Can't believe you made it in a day. Great job!
ReplyDeleteWe are doing a "wish tree" instead of a guest book. Guests will write little messages to us on cards and then hang them on the tree. I'm excited about it!
I would go with black ink because colored ink tends to fade over the years.
ReplyDeleteI love guest books like this! That is what my sister did. It's a nice momento to have as it's something you'll actually look through in the years to come!
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