Wedding guest books are a beautiful tradition that acknowledges the importance of your guests and invites them to share personal, heartfelt messages. After the wedding, your guest book remains as a treasured record of everyone who played a part in your big day.
Your wedding guest book, as well as its display at the reception, are totally customizable. While the ritual remains the same, the style and contents of the book, plus its interactive elements, can be personalized to match your wedding aesthetic. Mixbook’s custom wedding photo books and wedding stationery collections in matching themes make it very easy to do so.
Do you want your wedding guest book to be modern, meaningful, and customizable for your unique day? Do you want to create a guest book you’ll genuinely love revisiting as a couple, time and again? Here’s how to reimagine a traditional guest book as an interactive, emotion-filled artifact.
Related: How to make a wedding guest book
Traditional vs contemporary wedding guest books
Before digital photography, wedding guest books would typically be special hardbound books with simple sign-in prompts above blank or ruled pages. While available in many styles, customization options for mass-market guest books are limited. Today’s wedding guest books are 100% customizable, meaning to-be-wed couples can get super creative with these keepsakes.
There’s a noted trend of couples creating guest book that aren’t books. Modern couples might ask their guests to sign a framed photograph, individual postcards, or wine corks, or record voice or video messages. However, classic guest books have never gone out of style.
Mixbook’s customizable wedding guest books are designed to provide all the traditional interactive elements for guests while encouraging authentic self-expression. A custom guest book is a great showcase for your most memorable engagement and relationship photos. It’s also easy to personalize your guest book to match your wedding aesthetic.
Content ideas for your guest book
For the cover page or first page of your guest book, choose your No. 1 favorite engagement photo, or other romantic photo of the two of you together. Pair this showstopping photo with an introductory written message to your guests, inviting them to sign in and offer a message to you on your wedding day. The wedding date and to-be-wed’s names should be included on the cover or introductory page. You might also like to include any words or phrases that are important to you as a couple.
The other photos to feature in your guest book could be the highlights of a dedicated engagement photo shoot, or a curated selection of photos taken throughout your relationship. If you’re using photos from many different times and places, consider applying the same filter to them all to unify their look.
As a sentimental option, some couples might like to include old family wedding photos, for example, their parents’ or grandparents’ wedding day portraits. These are nice choices to go with a memory-sharing prompt.
Be sure your guest book is at least 50% blank/ruled spaces where guests will hand-write their names and messages. You can include full-page photos on select pages, but the majority should feature interactive spaces for guests’s contributions. Layouts with smaller photos surrounded by white space and varied lineups of thumbnail shots are all good choices.
Prompts for guest book messages
Prompts are an important consideration for custom wedding guest books. While most wedding guests will be familiar with the tradition, your guest book or guest book display should include some basic instructions or requests. While you shouldn’t tell your guests what to write, many will wonder what to write in a wedding guest book and appreciate the prompts.
As a couple, discuss the nature of your guest book and what it means to you to preserve the words of your closest friends and family on your wedding day. Do you desire words of wisdom, advice, well wishes, shared memories, or hopes and dreams? Do you want to get deep and sentimental, or prefer a lighthearted approach? Here are a few ideas for prompts to inspire your guests. Ask them to share:
- Words of wisdom
- Treasured memories
- Hopes for the newlyweds’ future
- Advice from long-married couples
- Remember that time when…?
- Share your best date night ideas!
- Tell us the best thing about married life
- Draw a doodle for us (provide colored pens)
- Where did you go on your honeymoon?
- What’s the most romantic song you know?
- Share a favorite quote
Many guest books include separate sign-in sections where guests are prompted to write their name and optionally where they traveled from. This is especially nice if you have guests attending from far and wide. You could even add a map to your Mixbook and ask guests to place dots or stickers to represent their homes.
Real-time Polaroid layouts
To make your guest book even more special, invite your guests to add more photos that capture the best memories of your wedding. Provide a Polaroid (or similar) instant film camera alongside the guest book. Your guests’ spontaneous selfies and personal messages will join your favorite pre-wedding pictures to complete your book.
Include a set of brief instructions, either printed inside the guest book or on a separate printed sheet. Ask guests to take a selfie and tape it into the guest book. (Provide washi tape and a smudge-proof marker.) You can ask guests to write a personal message at the bottom of the photo, or write something next to their photo inside the book.
Design your guest book pages with this concept in mind. Leave ample blank spaces where guests can tape Polaroid-size shots, with enough room around them for written messages. You could let guests create their own freeform arrangements. Or, design pages and spreads with defined photo spots using colored shape stickers or bordered grids.
What will you do with your wedding guest book?
A custom guest book is a one-of-a-kind memento. You’ll never forget your own experiences throughout your big day. Your guest book adds a glimpse into the thoughts, feelings, and well-wishes of the loved ones who shared it with you.
Reviewing your guest book—and wedding album—on all your anniversaries is a beautiful tradition. What will you do with your wedding guest book? Let us know by sharing your customer story.
Related: 26 Wedding Guest Book Ideas
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