Wedding Blog

Over the last 16 months of wedding planning (sheesh!), I have come across a lot of ideas for guest books, but none of them has really struck my fancy. I’ve seen engagement photo guest books, wish bowls, wish trees, and Polaroid guest books, but I wanted to do something a little different. (One of the curses of doing too much research!)Last month in the Spring issue of Inside Weddings, I came across a twist on the traditional guest book that I really liked:

photo from Inside Weddings

And last week while drooling over the work of Mrs. Penguin’s photographer, I saw it again:

Photo from Sarah K. Chen’s blog

I like the idea of having a memo board for guests to display their advice and well-wishes. It stands out enough that people will hopefully take notice of it and leave us a note, and it will likely provide some entertainment throughout the evening if our guests are able to read each other’s messages!

Since I’m picky and want everything to coordinate with our colors, I couldn’t just buy any old memo board, and I decided to make my own.

I started with a 20″ x 30″ piece of foam core (1/2″ thickness) from Michaels for $5.99:

And a yard of silver satin from Joann Fabric for $6.99 (which I ironed on a low setting before beginning, to ensure that it was wrinkle-free):

I cut the fabric to be about 5″ wider than the foam core around all edges:

I am sure I could have affixed the fabric to the foam core with a glue gun or something a little neater looking, but I decided that no one is going to see the back of the board, so I used some good ol’ quick, non-messy thumb tacks.

If you have ever stretched an artist’s canvas on your own, this is pretty much the same method I used. I started along one edge, tacking the fabric down, and then moved to the opposite side, pulling tightly so the fabric stayed taut. I did this all the way around, pulling tightly each time; to make sure everything was super secure, I finished the edges off using an extremely high-tech thing called a “stapler”:

Again, not the prettiest method, but it works and it was free since I had a stapler on-hand!

The result was a neat, smooth satin-covered board:

Exciting, huh?

Then it came time for the teal ribbon. Since the board was 30″ on its longest side, I decided I would place the satin ribbon every 5″. With a pencil, I marked 5″ marks along the top and bottom of the board, and then began affixing the ribbon by stapling it down to the back of the foam core. The piece of ribbon that started in the top left corner (at 0″) crossed down to the right and affixed to the 10″ mark at the bottom, in order to create a nice diagonal. I followed this format for all of the ribbons.

And then I went the other way to form my diamond shapes:

Once all of the ribbon was in place, I used my white thumb tacks and some cute decorative fabric flowers that I found at Michaels for $6.99 to further secure the ribbon at all of the intersections:

And, voila! My completed memo board:

The board will be displayed in our cocktail area, along with some blank cards and a sign explaining to our guests what it’s for, so hopefully throughout the evening we’ll get lots of fun messages from our friends and family!

Did doing this save me money? Probably not. Did it take more time than just buying a ready-made memo board? Definitely. But, I like that it will go along with the rest of our wedding decor, and I like that it has a hand-made quality to it.

What kind of guest book are you having at your wedding?