Recently I completely finished gathering everything we will need for our guestbook. This was another great thing to cross off the list before we get too close to the wedding. There are so many unique and fun options for guestbooks these days; not many people still opt for the traditional book of signatures anymore. Something I’ve always wanted to do was the the photo guestbook. I love photography and I have scrapbooks and photo albums jam-packed with photographs. I was sort of the record-keeper as a kid—I took and kept most of the photos and films of my friends as we were growing up. Therefore, the photo guestbook seemed like a natural choice for us—plus something Mr. C and I will enjoying flipping through for years to come!
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Image source: Ruffled / Photography by: Alexandra Roberts Photography
Mr. C gave me a Fujifilm Instax MINI instant film camera for Christmas a few years ago. Granted, I don’t use it very often (the film is rather expensive), but as soon as we got engaged I knew that it would come in handy! The idea is to have each couple or group of guests photographed. The instantly developed film will then be added to our guestbook with a personal message. We plan to have an attendant stationed at the table for a while in order to assist guests in taking photos. There is also a cool little fisheye mirror at the front of the camera, which will allow guests to take selfie photos as well, in case the attendant has left for the evening.
You remember Mad Libs, right?? Of course you do. They were ridiculously awesome.
So when I saw that wedding mad libs are a new thing, I thought, “I have to have it.” I told Mr. Whale about it, and he was like, “What? I don’t get it.” And he still doesn’t really get it. But I decided we would have them anyway. There’s not a whole lot else to tell other than…I made some mad libs! Want to see?
The “front” (the first side a guest would see anyway):
The back:
Back at the start of 2012 I made a New Year’s resolution to document my life.
Two thousand eleven had been pretty boring, and I thought that if I could take note of all the thing’s I’d been doing and store them somewhere, I could look back at 2012 and remind myself of all the fun things I’d done.
I used to make scrapbooks when I was younger, but I wanted something a bit simpler and came across Project Life—a way of scrapbooking that was easy and fun!
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Image via Becky Higgins at Project Life
Unfortunately, a lot of the Project Life products were unavailable in the UK at that time, but I pre-ordered some supplies and started taking notes of things that had been going on so I could catch up when my order was delivered.
It ended up being delivered in April, and by that point I had given up. I am all for instant gratification and I had gotten bored of it by then. So all my supplies just sat in a corner and collected dust for months.
I can officially say that Mr. B and I were part of this growing trend. Back when we first got engaged, I didn’t put much thought into guestbooks. I clearly was more concerned with finding the right location, band, and dress, and some of the smaller elements were just not that important to me yet. I’d always seen cute guestbook inspiration like this:
Conversation-starter guestbooks
Image via Etsy shop Nostalgic Imprints
After a lot of thinking about guestbooks, I realized I really want a tree, and not just any tree, but an autumn looking tree.
When I last talked about guestbooks, guest poster Ashley gave me this link for this free printable tree design (the same one Miss Panda will be using):
Image via One Fab Day
I downloaded it and put it on the back burner, until a few weeks ago, when I realized I better put my behind to work.
Pardon me for the Steve Miller “Joker” reference, but when it comes to classic rock, I just can’t help myself.
Anywho, remember a little while back when I mentioned my total love for guestbook thumbprint trees? Well, I did a LOT of research while trying to figure out the best way to make my inspiration spring to life. My original inclination was to have the tree printed on canvas, but then I started thinking about how well the ink would actually cling to the canvas and I started to get a little gun shy about it. Also, having it printed on canvas was realistically a little more than I was willing to spend on this project, no matter how cute it would be. So, I went back to the drawing board.
And then I saw Miss Panda’s post about getting hers printed via Vistaprint, and considering how much success I’ve had with that company in the past, a light bulb went off in my head. And so, after downloading a free vector tree file off the web and adding a few extra personal touches, I uploaded my final design to Vistaprint, selected the matte 18″ x 24″ poster stock, submitted my order, and waited on pins and needles for about a week.
The day it arrived, I ran to Walmart and picked up one of those semi-flimsy, plastic poster frames and a can of silver spray paint. I gave the frame a couple of coats of shiny, silvery goodness, slipped my thumbprint tree poster inside, and voila!
A few of the fun little details? Our names and wedding date at the bottom, and a cute heart with our initials “carved” into the tree trunk:
The guestbook is a bit of a weird tradition, in my opinion. Yes, it is a great way of making sure you remember all of the people who were at your wedding, but it seems to be a book that often gets put away on a shelf, never to be seen again. Furthermore, I feel like many different, more unique guestbook ideas often confuse the guests, and no one participates.
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Image via Style Me Pretty / Photo by Color Me Rad
As soon as I first saw a thumbprint tree, I knew I wanted to have one for our wedding. Growing up, I used to love to make thumbprint things, and it is a very cute way of incorporating our garden theme into the guestbook. Yeah, I know it’s been completely overdone in the wedding world, but given that we are the one of the first of our friends to get married, I just want it to be new to them.
There are a lot of really nice thumbprint options on Etsy.
You can get a gorgeous painted tree.
So, I’ve been perusing thousands upon thousands of wedding photographs for inspiration, and amidst all the beautiful pictures, I keep coming across a unique alternative to the traditional guestbook—THE WEDDING TREE!
Image via Style Unveiled
As you may have guessed from our engagement photo props, I love to quilt. I enjoy the sewing itself as well as the outcome—I am sucker for anything and everything patchwork. That being said, I adored the idea of a guestbook quilt, with each quest signing a fabric square.
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| Image via Martha Stewart Weddings |
However, my love for all things fabric had already dictated quite a few other wedding choices. We had already incorporated fabric save-the-dates, fabric table runners and fabric escort cards. Now this is by no means an admission that there is such a thing as too much fabric (I would never do such a thing!), but I did decide to go in a different direction.
I didn’t mean to keep our guestbook a secret from you all, but I finished collecting all the parts I needed for it the day before our wedding (whoops!) and I didn’t have a chance to blog about it.
I knew I didn’t want the traditional guestbook, and luckily there are endless options for a guestbook. All the framed pictures, picture books, and wishing trees were tempting, but in the end I decided to go with an idea I saw several years ago.
I don’t remember if I saw it in a magazine or on a blog, but the minute I saw the postcard guestbook I wanted to do it. (I collect postcards everywhere we go, and was super pumped to be able to incorporate them into our wedding.) Instead of signing a book, each of our guests had the opportunity to write us a postcard with a memory they have with Mr. Scepter and me, a piece of advice, or anything else they wanted. (A few of my friends drew some entertaining pictures.) After the wedding, my mom kept all the postcards and will be mailing them to us throughout the first year of our marriage.
All of the postcards were from places that are special to our relationship. They included the cities we grew up in, our college towns, and where we live now.
When I first saw the fingerprint-tree guestbook idea, I fell in love. It’s more than perfect, it’s sweet, it’s simple, it’s different (for local standards), and it can have that autumn vibe I’m so in love with.
At the beginning of our engagement I could have sworn we were going to have a fingerprint guestbook. I looked at Etsy shops (as much as I’m scared of Etsy prices), I looked at local printers to see how easy it’ll be to print it locally, I even asked around for designers who could draw one for me. I eventually set the idea aside as something I’d worry about closer to the wedding.
I’m finding myself beginning to “remember” a LOT of things concerning the wedding that weren’t necessarily forgotten about, but rather just pushed aside because I would figure them out closer to the wedding.
With just over two months, we are now “close” to the wedding, and there are many things that I have had to force myself to make a decision on because there’s just no time to procrastinate any longer! Luckily, I haven’t completely forgotten anything or waited too late to take care of it (knock on wood!), but I aaaaalmost made the mistake of waiting to late to decide on the guestbook. A little over a week ago, Momma Coach texted me asking about a guestbook. We had talked about them shortly after Mr. C proposed, but I really hadn’t given much thought to them since then. Momma C had mentioned that she knew someone who could make a custom bridal book, but in all honesty, when I pictured this I just saw a big ball of lace with a lot of old fashioned mixed in.
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Maybe not that much lace, but you get the picture. 
/ Image via Handmade Artists
I assured her I would find one, but it might be a little more contemporary, and off and on over the last few months I would glance at guestbooks on Etsy. I really just browsed and never really looked with buying in mind. Then, I got Momma C’s text, and realized I needed a guestbook like, yesterday, because my shower is coming up (this Saturday!).
So, I headed over to Etsy (no surprise there, I’m sure) and took a look at my options. Some of my favorites were:
It’s been so frustrating trying to come up with a creative and unique guestbook alternative. And by “creative” and “unique” I really mean “Scottish” and “princess-like” because, let’s be honest, I’m obsessed with our THEME! I’d really like most aspects of the wedding to fit within “A Highland Fairy Tale,” but that proves difficult at times. I know the theme is a bit specific intense, but I’m having a blast making it all come together and I wouldn’t want it any other way!
As it is now I am currently struggling with incorporating the THEME in favors, the card box, and the guestbook. I have ideas/options for all of them, but I want to focus on the guestbook in this post.
My first idea was to print out a book from Shutterfly with our engagement photos on one side and empty pages to sign on the other, classy and then easy to enjoy later. But it also seemed easy to ignore at the wedding. Then I read about the calendar guestbook idea where guests sign their names on their birthdays and at the end you have this practical and awesome reminder for the future. But I prefer everything be stored on my Google calendar and that idea didn’t really go with our theme. I also toyed with having a puzzle guestbook because it seemed so fun and I love to play games! But I hate puzzles. Oh, mundane wedding problems!
After lots of thinking I’ve FINALLY settled on something that mixes both sides of our “A Highland Fairy Tale” wedding, and I wanted to run it by the hive first!
A looooong time ago, I decided I wanted a giant monogram for our guestbook. Mr. Dragon was fine with the idea, and Dad Dragon is keen in the wood shop, so we asked him if he could build us a big ol’ B for our guests to sign. I’ve only seen a glimpse of it, but I can tell you that it’s a big, big letter!
Dad Dragon even figured out the best pen type/varnish configuration, so it should last for a good, long time. I can’t wait to display it with our yarn letters after the wedding. But, I still wanted some kind of guestbook our friends and family could sign, just in case the initial was a bit too out there for some.
In a fantastic stroke of luck, I scored a coupon for a free 8×8 Shutterfly photo book! It just showed up in the mail, and I’m pretty excited.
Recently I posted some thoughts about what might work well for a nontraditional guestbook. My front-runner idea in that post was a framed linotype print of Texas that guests could sign and we could hang on our wall. Then my bridesmaid/best bud/awesome girlfriend Chicago J oh-so-sweetly reminded me that I already had a great idea for a guestbook, and it was not a print of Texas.
(Clearly my wedding brain has developed some holes, and information is leaking out. It might be because I’m solidly into the double-digit countdown to the big day. Just a hunch.)
And, it just so happens that I like my original idea better than the framed-print idea. Thanks, Chicago J!
So what is this idea, you wonder?
