Best Wishes to the New Mr. and Mrs.
January 10th, 2007 @ 7:33 pm by Mrs. Pearl
When we first started thinking about our guestbook, we thought we’d be “untraditional” (in our family and circle of friends) and do a wishbowl. The wishbowl would allow people to write a bit more than just a short message in a small space (which I liked), and then the messages could be saved in a scrapbook.
However, now I’ve been seeing a different type of guestbook that I really like — photo books.
These are available to print from online retailers like MyPublisher, Kodak, and Shutterfly. And if there are one of those oft-floating around MyPublisher coupons available, an even better bargain! All you have to do is upload the pictures, and the company does the rest — prints and binds your book, then mails it to you.
One of my friends had a photo guest book at her wedding. On each page, she had a picture of herself at one age, then a picture of her (now) husband on the corresponding page at that same age. It was a really nice way for guests who weren’t family to be a part of their lives from growing up. I have also seen couples use their engagement photos for each page.
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22 Responses to “Best Wishes to the New Mr. and Mrs.”
i want to have polaroid pics of the guests next to whatever message they scribble onto the page
The photo guestbook seems like a lot of work, especially if you have a large number of guests. I’m all about simplicity, so we’re doing somethingl like the wish card/bowl thing. Later on we’ll just take those cards (they’re 4×6) and put them into a photo album for that size.
We’re having loose pages for the guests to sign (no waiting in line) and there will be sections for them to fill out like “advice for the newlyweds” and a space for a Poloroid.
After the honeymoon, we’ll bind it into a book.
We didn’t have a guestbook
My sister had a great idea for her wedding guest book. She sent a special note in her invitations for people to send me one of their wedding photos. We asked the guests to not send an original, but if they did, I just scanned it and printed out a copy. I then compiled all the wedding photos into her guest book, which was just a blank scrapbook like you can buy at Michaels crafts. Once the guests came, they found their wedding photo in the book and wrote a note next to their picture. It was so nice to have a mix of pictures from as far back as the 30’s, all the way up to a couple months prior to her wedding day. It really was a hit with the guests! I thought it looked a little more classy than polaroids, and much more cost effective. If you have a wedding website for you and your fiance, you can post the request for photos on the site, and guests can just email the photos to you, which will make it even easier!
We did a photo guest book of our e-pics.
I doubt we’ll have a guestbook….we’re only going to be having like 50 people there, MAX. Heh.
I’m planning to do a photo frame and let my guests sign the mat. This way I can enjoy seeing it each and every day when I hang it in my future home!
JenBoys … that’s the coolest idea ever!
I liked our “guest book” idea too. We got married in a semi-destination wedding (Vermont) and each time we went up for a planning trip, we bought a bunch of cool VT postcards we saw. We put them all on a table at the wedding and asked guests to send us a note from the wedding, wishes, etc. and drop them in the basket. We put our address on all of them, and my mom mailed them to us — a few a day — for a few weeks after the wedding. It was great to get fun mail each day with sweet notes from our guests and a daily reminder about the special wedding weekend.
we’re not having a guestbook!
We are putting together a coffee table book with lots of whitespace with typical Maine scenes taken by our photographer. Then people can sign any page, yearbook style. I thought it would be something we would actually look at again.
My cousin did a photo guestbook. She had one person taking pictures of the guests, one person putting the pictures into the guests’ message, and the other two to direct people to sign the guestbook. It was a little hectic (i was one of those) but they both really appreciated it in the end!
We’re doing two, I think…
A coffee table book from mypublisher.com (through iPhoto, which is offering 25% off orders of 50 dollars or more, 50% off orders of 100 dollars or more) of our engagement pics, with signing lines in back for the ceremony (more traditional, hopefully everyone will sign).
We will have a photobooth and will do a photo guestbook with those pictures (pics in my blog).
we used guestbookstore.com for our ceremony in hawaii and then did the polaroid photo guest books for the AHR. they all went over really well! the guestbookstore.com ones are good for a small wedding. the pages are really detailed and i can’t see anyone other than really close friends and family wanting to spend time to fill out their pages.
but for the g-parents’ anniversary party, i made them a guestbook with mypublisher, with photos of them from their wedding day to now, and they absolutely loved it. it’s on their coffee table and they love to go back and read the sentiments from everyone.
i just thought the photobook would be able to capture fun pics of our guests..and also give us something we can take to the honeymoon and look through on the pane 
Word of caution about MyPublisher: My mom had picture books made for all the seniors in Marching Band my senior year (yes, I was a band geek), and the binding started coming apart about a year later. I punched holes in the book and tied it with ribbon, which actually looks cute. Maybe a way to use leftover wedding ribbon?
winkflash.com is another website for making photo books
mmm.. nice design, I must say..
One day his mother’s attorney called to tell him that she had left him $35,000
Mrs. Pearl, Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 26, High school history teacher
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 37, Software engineer
Engagement Date: No official date, we just decided :-)
Wedding Date: July 2007
Venue: St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox Church, Ritz Carlton Huntington Hotel
About Me: Mr. Pearl and I have been together for about four and a half years now. We've been "engaged" since 2004 and were originally supposed to get married in June 2006, but postponed the wedding to July 2007. I love shopping for housewares and office supplies, music, reading chick lit, football, and the diverse world of Los Angeles dining.
We’re having a phtot booth that prints 2 sets, one for your guests and one for you that an attendent puts into a scrapbook that has pages guests can write on. So excited!