As wedding attendees, one problem we always found with guest books was that people don’t necessarily know what to write (that or they can’t find them, which happens to me surprisingly often). And as a result, some guests either don’t sign them or just simply sign their names, which is fine, but we were looking for a way to engage people further. We thought about designing more of a poster/wall-hanging type thing, but our walls are already covered with show posters and other artwork. And we went through a bunch of other non-traditional ideas, but nothing seemed timeless enough for us to keep around for years to come. So we came to the conclusion that we still wanted a book of some sort, but we didn’t want anything pre-made. And then I came across this idea from Martha Stewart Weddings.
We loved the idea of making the guest book more of a conversation, and the question prompts on each cover were a perfect way to do that. We also really liked their suggestion to place one book on every table. However, we already had quite a lot going on there, so it wouldn’t really work for us. In the end we decided to modify the idea by coming up with a smaller list of questions and leaving multiple books out on the table for signing.
above two photos by Unusually Fine
We bought simple black sketchbooks with blank pages and then designed a series of covers the books. Remember covering your school books with brown paper bags? We basically used the same type of template for this.
all of the above photos by me
And here are the designs up close. Not sure if we got a better response than we would have with a more traditional guest book, but we definitely got some fun and creative answers, so I’m really glad we went this route.
4 Comments
Love this idea! I am planning a wedding and have been thinking alot about the guestbook. I love the questions…so simple for guests to answer! Thanks for sharing!
These are awesome. Great job designing the jackets! I was thinking of doing the same thing on cards and colleting them afterward, but having multiple books is less work in the end… these rock.
Excellent idea!!! Something different than just having a guest book for signatures. I’m loving the different colored jackets for each!!
What supplies did you use for this?
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