Alternatives to Guest Books. What is everyone doing?

FH found a glass and metal personalized box that hold paper heart cutouts for guest to sign that he likes very well. It is from Things Remembered. I liked it also.

We are doing a wooden "S" (my soon to be last name initial) for people to sign with sharpie. My grandpa is making it for extra sentimental value and I hope we will hang it in our home for a very long time!

We built a bench for people to sign. FH and I built it and had a blast doing so. This is a picture before I finished painting it. But it's a good idea.

I was going to do a quilted wall hanging that everyone could sign, since it's something I do as a hobby. But now I'm doing a book. HA!

We have a Jenga set and some sharpies, we're asking everyone to sign a Jenga piece! I love board games so it worked for us.

Here is mine only the background is blue. I thought about doing the background green since that's one of the wedding colors but I plan to hang it in the kitchen and green would have clashed in there so blue it is (glad I thought of that actually). It was a bit of a nightmare to get it here (took over 6 months and was wrong the first time it came) but it's here now and it's awesome. It was way more than I wanted to spend but I knew a traditional guest book would just end up in a box never to be seen again and this we will seen every day.

Reggie I LOVE that!!!

Guest books are still around but don't feel pressured to have one! I've read your previous posts and you sounded stressed, don't loose your sanity! You will need it for the wedding!

We're making the photos from the photo booth into a scrapbook/guestbook

We did this

I wanted a guest book, but not just signatures, which seemed lame to me (sorry.) I found this idea on pinterest and stole it. FH and I bought a photo album from michaels and then about 100 tiny envelopes and cards (on sale at front of store.) Then I hot glue gunned the back of the envelopes in patterns on each page and then stamped the front with a double heart stamp. We are putting out a basket of the cards and pens and I made a chalkboard sign that asks them to give us their love wisdom (in both English and Spanish since half the wedding is ESL). I figured, when we were having a tough day down the road, being able to pull out a card or two from the book would cheer us up a lot more than looking at a bunch of names on a piece of wood - even though those names represent so much positivity.

I would like to do a time capsule guest book, where guests can drop messages in jars for us to open on our 1-5 year anniversaries. (Another idea that can be found on the Pinterest.)

Thanks chasity. It's off etsy. It ended up being great and I think the lady meant well but it just took forever. I think they gave priority to people whose wedding dates were sooner. Makes sense in a way, but not really fair that people who ordered far out to avoid last minute stress still get stuck worrying if their item will get there on time. I had wanted to get a couple signatures from people that were coming to the shower and not the wedding (invited to both just couldn't make it to the wedding) and it wasn't here in time.

Created a poster board with envelopes similar to below (with funkier pattered envelopes). Guests can write a love note, pop it in an envelope of their choice and seal it up when done.

Nancy and Brooklynbride - I love the envelope-centered ideas! I bet it'll be so cute!

I've seen a couple do postcards- they had a stack of postcards that people could choose from and write a message on, and then they hung them around the reception with clothes pins. Not sure how they stored them after the wedding though!

We're having a Mets theme so we're going to get 2 custom Mets jerseys with either his first name on one and mine on the other or our last name on both and then 10 on one and 09 on the other for our wedding day. We're going to have people sign the backs of them and then frame them to hang in our apartment/house.

I have been brainstorming ways to have a memento that I am excited to have AND avoid the receiving line (I really hate them). My best idea so far was for me and my FH to carry an item with us that we give to our guests to sign and deposit at their table.

Some of the cooler things I've seen online: Jenga Pieces, Puzzle pieces, scraps of paper that will combine into a picture

How about having a tree filled with guests fingerprints?! Something like what Buttons125 had, but instead of signing, fingerprints next to their names!

Best,

Carmen

My friend did a beautifully hand-drawn tree upon which the guests made thumbprint "leaves" and signed them. I found some beautiful pre-made silhouette trees on Etsy and the guests sign the leaves - it's a similar idea, but much more customized since FH and I can add our own silhouettes and our dogs and a background. FH and I like this one so far, but we're still far out from the wedding, so the odds are that we'll find other ideas in the meantime.

This is what we're doing--guests sign around the outside: