guest book

Shleigh02

Is a guest book really necessary? I've been looking at them online and can't find many I find attractive, and when I do they are $40-$70 without a matching pen. Do they serve a purpose? I'm having an average wedding of 150+ people, so I'll actually miss someone if they don't show. And if they are necessary, do they sit out at the ceremony or reception, or both?

charlsie26

i'm doing a photo book, i made it on shutterfly of FI and I. and left plenty of spaces for people to sign around the pictures and a few blank pages in the back.  It's like signing it yearbook style.

Catwoman708

No, they are not necessary. Most people don't even really look at them again after the wedding. You certainly don't need to pay much if you do use one. You can get an inexpensive one for $10-20 at most craft stores that sell wedding accessories, like Michael's, Garden Ridge, Hobby Lobby, Wal-mart, or Target. My daughter found a "memory book" type guest book and matching pen at Hobby Lobby during one of their 50% off wedding accessory sales (which they have often). The two items would have been about $50 without the sale. If you really want to go cheap, get a few sheets of pretty scrapbook paper that will fit in a wedding album, then print your names and wedding date at the top, and blank lines. Then after the wedding, put it in your wedding album.

Leah&Christian09

The only things you have to have are a bride, a groom, an officiant and a marriage license. The rest is fluff. I like that we had one, though. It was cool to look back and see the little notes people write. You could do a pretty notebook, a picture book, a blown up photo board or something cheap from Michael's. Or you could skip it all together. If you don't care about it, don't worry about it.

rasdreamer34

We were afraid that we would spend too much money to find the perfect one and then it would sit on the shelf and never get looked at... So we got the frames with the signature matte/mats (im not sure which is the right word, lol). We got 2- one for pre marriage and one are a wedding pic. Kinda like a high school yearbook that you can hang on the wall

LouLou222

Our guest book is handy for people's addresses - a few of our guests moved between invitations being sent and the wedding - so we knew their address easily for thank-yous.I was tempted to buy a big pretty $50 guest book and am SO glad I didn't.  We got a nice looking one for $10 or $12 at Walmart, but putting a few pages together yourself might be even more cost effective.  Our guest book probably has about 75 pages in it, and guests only used up 6 of them.We had ours at the reception where people came in.

2dBride

We're doing ours mostly because we are doing a DIY "photobooth," so we'll have pictures of the guests in it, not just signatures.  Then again, a friend is making ours, so we're not worried about the cost.  They are by no means mandatory.

hvnlydevil

Totally not neccessary. We opted out of having a book and instead had a guest platter for everyone to sign. [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v515/hvnlydevil/platter.jpg[/img]

Catwoman708

My daughter did not want to do the signatures on the photo mat thing, because they'd been to several weddings that had them. Each time, someone had "ruined" them by either scribbling, writing really big and using up a lot of space, or writing something inappropriate on there for all to see.

ginnygrace84

I'm making a scrapbook of my relationship with my fiance (told fairytale style) leading up to the wedding and I plan to comclude the scrapbook with guest book pages. The scrapbook will be out at the reception for all to look through, with the blank pages out with notes instructing guests to sign/write comments.

nutmeg0286

We decided on a photo guest book too that a photographer in our area specializes in.  For example, some of the pages are sort of "watermarked" with our photo so people actually write on the pic and some look more like a scrapbook with the pic then white pages.  And this allows our guests to write more than just their name, maybe with "well wishes". I knew that if I went with a standard guest book just with lined pages, we would never look at it again, except maybe years and years down the road if we happened upon it.  But this photo guest book is more of a keepsake that we will keep out and after the wedding day is over, it will be exciting to go through it and see what everyone wrote!

ffmaid

We skipped it and nobody noticed. It is fine to skip

ozzyroni

What we are doing is getting a general artist's sketchbook and then having my tween cousin (you know the one you need to use in the wedding bt they are too old to be flower girl but not old enough for bridesmaid) man a the table it's on with a fujifilm instax (like a polaroid camera but less expensive and takes better photos because it's newer technology) and then giving each guest the opportunity to write us funny messages or notes and glue that onto the page, instead f the usual book that everyone else has that people just scribble "congrats - mary and ralph" in I WANT LETTERS! (giggle) plus ladie we all know that we put together these awesome outfits for weddings and nobody takes our pictures. i think it will be really cool

Mandrien

Our whole ceremony is a handfasting.  So we got a really nice wooden box to put the cords in.  So, we are buying felt and a paint pen so guests can sign the felt and then line the box with that.