Virtual wedding guestbook

jessicarabbit501

We're having a destination wedding and are trying to limit the amount of stuff we fly with as well as the amount of things we bring home.  We know we'll end up coming home with more than we took out there and we really want to limit how much stuff that is.    FI and I are tech-savvy and into saving paper and we've seen a few places where you can have a kiosk or computer set up at your reception where guests can wish you well (like they would in a regular guestbook) but do so virtually.  People can either type a message to the couple or record a video message.  I like the idea bc its less invasive than a videographer walking around asking everyone to say a few words and putting people on the spot.  People can leave a message when they want without feeling rushed too.  Plus, when it's all said and done we can just log in and view all our messages from wedding guests.

Anwyay, anyone have experience with this?  Does anyone see any potential snags we might hit?

Thanks!

nhelene

If you guys are tech savvy as in "we both have masters degrees in computer science and rewire circuit boards in our spare time and everyone knows what big geeks we are"  I think it's a cute idea.

If you're tech savvy as in "We really really really like twitter"  I think it comes off as a little lazy (even though you'd obviously be doing more work than if you just set out a guestbook)

danieliza1127

Also, another thing to think about regarding how you would access the info, is what do you plan to do with it?  Keep in mind that 10 or even 20 years from now, technology will be so different that you may lose access to it unless you convert it somehow.  Kind of like how people with VHS wedding tapes probably don't watch them anymore because they don't have a VCR. 

Sticking a guest book in your suitcase isn't really that big of a space issue in my opinion.

jessicarabbit501

We hate twitter, haha but we are both tech savvy as in building websites, rebuilding computers, etc.  We are geeks, haha.

maybe we could have someone there to help guest fill it out or remind them to do it -- just like anyone would with a regular guestbook? 

Part of our problem with a regular guestbook is that both FI and I think its a waste.  IMHO, you buy this book and people either forget to write in it or you have a bunch of pages that just go to waste and then you look at it a few times, write your thank yous and then it gets stored away. I think books are as much of a dying breed as anything, what with kindles and all so I'm not entirely sold on a regular guestbook being around longer than something digital.  The program we found puts everything on cd-rom for you which you can then save to a hard drive and im sure that at some point we could convert it to some other type of file if necessary.  technology doesnt quite seem ready to completely do away with digital media so i think we'd be able to cherish it for awhile.

nhelene

Embrace your geekitude with pride, sister!

It's not my style, but if you think you'll actually use the CD-ROM once in a while, it could be fun.  Maybe you could turn it into a screensaver or incorporate it into a digital photo frame or something like that.

I feel the same way about guestbooks so I am going to try to combine my guest book and wedding photo album... still working on the logistics.

CA2MT4EveR

Please do not assign someone to it as their "job" for the night.

jessicarabbit501

With all our pics (FI and I traveled around Asia for 2 years ago) we have them networked on our home computers, laptops etc. so its our screensaver for everything.  We'd like to do that with wedding stuff as well.

also, I wouldn't assign a guest to do (probably should have made this more clear), I'd probably just assign someone who was familiar with the software.  

And our DW is in Santa Barbara, CA.  It's my hometown but no one in my family or parents live there anymore and FI's family is from Ohio (where we live now) so its a DW for everyone.

I actually found out that we can rent a computer to do this so we wouldn't need to bring our own computers (although i have a netbook and it's really tiny).

nicolegreen1207

I agree that a having a guest book is a waste. I mean honestly...how many people pull out a guest book after their married to reminsce about who was there?!?! I did however see a really cute idea on Brides.com that suggested using a year round planner as a guest book instead. The concept being that the guest would write their name on their birthday...which you could then keep to send them birthday cards in the future or even send them something electronic on their birthday.

aerinpegadrak

We didn't want a regular guest book either.  I'm rather addicted to wall art, so we picked up a couple of posters that the guests will sign, which we can then hang on our wall.