Wedding Etiquette Forum

Guest Book

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being aisle runner/cake topper necessary and 10 being food and a chair for every butt, how necessary is a guest book?




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Re: Guest Book

  •     I think it's different for everyone. I'm not having one, because my wedding is immediate family only (I may not be the best example). Some people find them really important and others don't. My mom advised me, when I was doing a larger wedding, to not bother. She had one and never looked at it after the wedding and doesn't even really know where it is anymore. Other people do creative, artsy things with theirs and treasure them after. 

      So for me personally, a 1, LOL .
  • For me, zero.  Aisle runner and cake topper was also a zero too.
  • Zero. I'm like Fairjen1's mom. I wouldn't have had one, but it was a gift from one of my bms. I looked at it once, everyone signed their names, a few wrote generic messages, nothing I'd want to look at again. I don't know where it is. 
                       
  • I'm having a guest book because I had a coupon for a free photo guest book from Shutterfly. It's a nice book, but I'll probably just look at it for the pictures. So I'd rate it as a 0 or 1.
  • We're doing a scrapbook as our guest book (photographers will take pictures of each guest/couple and guests will get squares of paper to leave us a message on), but honestly, if we forgot to bring the book and paper, I wouldn't even notice afterwards. It has no bearing on our guests' comfort, so it rates very, very low on the scale of importance.
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  • Honestly, it is kind of nice for me to look at my old guestbook after all these years, and to see the signatures of the people who were at my wedding, many of whom are gone now.
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  • We're having a photo book and the package comes with a scrapbook and an attendant that we take a copy of each strip, glue it in the book, and then the guests can write a little note/blurb next to their photos if they want. Probably will end up on the bookshelf most of the time, but at least I'll have the option of pulling it out and reminisce. :)
     
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  • I would say a 3-4 for me. Every year that we have been dating I have made a photo book of our past year. Kind of like a year book for us. We have them on a shelf and each is labeled a year. They cost less than $25 at Wallgreens and its a nice way to look back at a year together whenever we feel like it. This year will be 5 years together in July. I am skipping making a book in July and holding off until our wedding in October. So our Year 5 book will be our guest book. 
  • I didn't want a traditional guest book, but we did have guests sign and write messages on river rocks, which we keep in a vase in our home. It's one of my favorite things. 
    What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14
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  • I tend to enjoy sentimental things like that, but I can also see myself letting it collect dust on a shelf after 15 years...  
    Instead of getting a frilly book, FI and I are tossing around 2 ideas:
    1) a large, bound score book (like an orchestra conductor would use), since our wedding reception has a subtle music theme, or
    2) a large piece of framed canvas with our names / wedding date / something idk painted in the middle, which we could hang on our wall as decoration after the wedding (family friends of ours, married 30 years ago, have this on their dining room wall and we just love the idea)
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  • 0 for me. DH actually pushed for it. He is the sentimental one in our relationship, so we compromised. In place a traditional guestbook, which I did not foresee us looking at, we purchased two blank frames for people to sign. When we get our wedding photos back, we will put up photos of our guests at the reception in them.
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  • I'd say a 6 or 7 for me. I'm looking forward to reading people's messages years from now.


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  • I'd say a 6 or 7 for me. I'm looking forward to reading people's messages years from now.
    Me too. We're doing a "conversation starter" type of guest book, where pages have titles like "I knew the bride and groom would be together forever when...." and "The Bride is perfect for the Groom because...". And there's blank ones too for people who just want to sign their name. The pages currently aren't bound (they're scrapbook pages), so we're going to lay them out on a table so more than one person can sign simultaneously if they wish. I'm planning to put them into a scrapbook with other items from the wedding (like an invitation, etc.) after it's all over. We'll then have that book, and a bound photobook of wedding pictures. I don't plan to look at either often, but love the idea of having them to look at in 20 years and to show our future children, or for future grandchildren to come across some day. 
  • ElcaBElcaB member
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    MandyMost said:
    I'd say a 6 or 7 for me. I'm looking forward to reading people's messages years from now.
    Me too. We're doing a "conversation starter" type of guest book, where pages have titles like "I knew the bride and groom would be together forever when...." and "The Bride is perfect for the Groom because...". And there's blank ones too for people who just want to sign their name. The pages currently aren't bound (they're scrapbook pages), so we're going to lay them out on a table so more than one person can sign simultaneously if they wish. I'm planning to put them into a scrapbook with other items from the wedding (like an invitation, etc.) after it's all over. We'll then have that book, and a bound photobook of wedding pictures. I don't plan to look at either often, but love the idea of having them to look at in 20 years and to show our future children, or for future grandchildren to come across some day. 
    I love this and just might have to use it myself! Did you write out the pages yourself or what?
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  • We're having a guest book. I loved the idea of river rocks until I was reminded that:

    1. A lot of people won't know what to do with them (not a lot of recent weddings, high population of seniors on the guest list).
    2. We'll feel the need to save/store them forever.
    3. FSS tends to break/ruin/otherwise destroy things so we need something we can store safely.

    I want to get a small white or fabric leather journal for people to write in. I'll probably decorate it with some of our leftover lace and call it a day. Like what @CMGragain mentioned, I see myself looking back on it years later. Most of my family is much older so I like the idea of something that will last.
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  • 0-1


    We did a scrapebook.  I made up pages where people could write. There was spot for a picture.  After the wedding I added pictures of each guest to the page.  I like looking back at the album.






    What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests.  Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated. 
  • KaurisKauris member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its Name Dropper
    We are doing a shutterfly book too. I got a free coupon code when we did our registry at Macy's. So using our e-pics and having a few blank or mostly blank pages, if people sign, great, if not, no big deal.
  • I would say a 7-8 for me. I painted a wooden chest (nothing huge) but I wanted people to sign that because I planned to put some wedding keepsakes (all the cards we received, an invite, the table number at our dinner table, a favor, etc) in it. It now sits on our family room floor. Every once in a while I look at it and through the stuff inside.

  • I would say a 3-4.  We had a photobooth so it was easy enough to have a book there with the photobooth attendant so people could paste in an extra copy of their strip and write next to it.  The messages are fun, and I love looking through the silly photos so I think we'll continue go through it from time to time in the future.
  • I would go with 6ish. We are having a frame with a photo of us put out for people to sign the matting. It's something we will hang up in the house afterward. I like the idea because some of my family members are getting older and I will love to have examples of their familiar handwriting somewhere I can see every day.
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  • 2-3.  I'm not usually sentimental but ever since losing some sentimental stuff in Hurricane Sandy I thought I wouldn't care much about, I've realized it is important to me.  I was ripping pages out of soaked/ruined books because they were inscribed by my deceased grandfather.  I'm not as worried about it as things that involve the guests' comfort, and I won't be bent out of shape if not everybody signs, but it's important to me that we at least have one.

    We are thinking about doing either a photobooth guest book or one of those frames with the silver mat your guests sign with a special pen.  I would love to have both but don't want to ask people to sign twice.  We might do the silver mat frame as the guest book and just have the photo booth as our favor.
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  • CTYankeeBrideCTYankeeBride member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its Name Dropper First Comment
    edited July 2014
    It's around a 3-5 for us.  FI is going to draw a vintage VW fastback (we're restoring one together) and we'll have guests sign balloons.  The finished product will look something like this but without finger prints (I'm making balloons out of card stock to attach).  We'll frame it and put it in our home. 
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    edited to fix picture
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  • I'd say mine was about a 5 to a 6. We got a leather-bound journal from B&N and had it open so people could sign/write a note.

    However, we also included a little sign above it that said (something like), "Please sign or leave a note as this will not only be our guest book, but an event book. As we continue on into our married life, we will use this book to record events. Dinner parties, birthdays, holidays and any joyous occasion we will bring out this book for others to sign and therefore add to our memories."

    So ours isn't a "one use only" book, we plan on having people sign it when they come over for a fun dinner party or Thanksgiving, etc.
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  • It was at about a 3 or 4, we only had one because it was included with our photographer's package.  I would say probably less than half of our guests signed it.

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  • I got a wedding guest book TREE poster. Guests sign the leaves Guest book posters are great!  It is a neat alternative to the original guest book and we framed ours to hang on our wall after the wedding. The guests loved it to. I got ours on etsy... here is a link to her shop... Wedding Guestbook Tree  
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  • l9il9i member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment Name Dropper
    edited July 2014

    I have a wedding memory book with a section in the back that is a "guest book".  (I most likely would not have a guest book if it was just a guest book.)  It has things about each of us, how we met, etc etc, and places for our invite, program, and pictures.  FI and I both realize we may not look at for awhile following the wedding, but it might be nice to look at many years later or for future children to see.  And if we don't, well we enjoyed the trip down memory lane and thinking about how our relationship came to be and evolved.

    For me it's not uber importan but I'm putting the book out because there is a premade section in the book for guests so I figure might as well.

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