I thought long and hard about how I wanted to receive (and keep) messages from our guests on the day. And I‘m glad I did! Even if a guest book seemed quite a trivial component of the day; after all, your loved ones will wish you well in person on the day, why do you need them to also write it down? I have three reasons why: 1) you may not even get to speak to them at all, 2) even if you do get round to everyone, you will never remember what they said, and 3) it’s nice to have a physical ‘something’ from the actual day to remind you how happy everyone was for the two of you.
I had several ideas quite early on: messages typed an old fashioned typewriter; marriage advice written on recipe cards and stored in a recipe box, entitled ‘recipe for a successful marriage’; selfie Polaroid’s with handwritten messages on the back; and then there was just the plain ol’ traditional guest book. The possibilities really are endless.
As we wanted the tone of the wedding to be relaxed and non-traditional, it didn’t make sense to go for anything too conventional. I also knew that I was going to incorporate many vintage aspects in to the decor and ‘look’ of the day (my Grandmother’s china tea set, antique vases, and well...my whole ensemble). So I took some inspiration from our honeymoon plans; a road trip across the West Coast of America and started collecting a bunch of blank vintage postcards featuring places we intended to visit on our trip. I sent these out with the invites and asked everyone to write their message and bring it along on the day. Of course I bought extras for those who, like me, would forget.
People included honeymoon suggestions, marriage advice, well-wishes and even thank you notes for being included in the day. The great people at the venue hung string across trellis and I bought the cutest little pegs from Ebay for the postcards to be hung up as if on a washing line. It looked effective and meant that guests could read each other’s notes. I also loved that everyone had enough time to really think about what they wanted to write and didn’t feel rushed on the day.
At the end of the night I just unhooked the string and packed the whole line away. I’ve since stored them in a memory box at home but would now like to transfer them to an album that is more easily accessible, so that whenever I feel like I need a little reminder of the day it’s in easy reach.
Who else had an original guest book idea? I’d love to hear about them.
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