Alternatives to Guest Books. What is everyone doing?

This is ours!

Double post

Triple post.

In response to DRGCAS, you answered my question about what to do with the empty space in the center of the photo-signing matte since there will be no wedding photo yet. Thanks! We had that idea but I also want a guest book so I ordered one that perfectly fits our "theme" from Etsy, and it wasn't even expensive. If we still do the photo-signing frame I now know what to do about that photo slot.

Music has played an important part of our lives (we met as music grad students while FH was stage managing a performance I was singing in, introduced by a music colleague) and a good percentage of our guests will be musicians of some ilk themselves. so, we are doing a bound notebook of music staff paper that people can sign as they would traditionally or even write a love "note." we only recently settled on this idea, but we both have responded it to it so much more than any traditional guest book - which, honestly, we would have probably just forgone. we plan to purchase from an etsy seller (https://www.etsy.com/listing/211691595/music-journal-small-wide-6-staves) and have some title/design (or initials) on the cover.

Not 100% sure what we're doing yet (hey... 26 days, that's TONS of time to plan, right??) but there were a couple alternative ideas that I really liked:

-guests sign the matte of a photo frame - you later add in a wedding picture (or like my cousin did, the CD of their first dance song that the DJ gifted them)

-as a scrapbooker, one idea I played with was to have blank scrapbook pages with photo-sized sections blocked out - guests could sign all around the page, and later I could try to coordinate the photos from the wedding with the guests whose signatures were on that page

-a locked box and a stack of pretty note cards or small pieces of paper where guests could sign their name and write a brief bit of marriage advice or a nice note. When things get tough or on an anniversary or something, open the box and read some of the notes.

We ordered a watercolor world map for our guests to sign.

We are having a quilt made. The quilt colours are the same as our wedding colours. Across the middle of the quilt is a banner piece that says "Mr. & Mrs. Bailey" and our wedding date. Pre sized pieces will be signed by our guests and quilted into the design.

We are using wedding mad libs as our guest book! I found some ideas on pinterest and then created my own on Microsoft Word and printed them out. After the wedding I am going to put together a scrapbook/album to keep them in. We are really looking forward to reading them after. They have the potential to be really nice and sweet or super ridiculous and funny so it will be nice to see what perspective our guests take.

We're getting a photo album guest book from the photo booth people. My MOH got us this pretty clear growler w/ Mr. & Mrs. etched on the side for an engagement gift. We were going to have people leave their names inside, but I think itll be too hard to get them out and I don't want to break it.

We had a poster printed up. We're going to have everyone sign it and then put it back in the frame. We wanted something that was functional and something that screamed us. A guest book would've just been shoved away somewhere and forgotten in our house.

We are doing this.. is is small river rock that I can put in a jar on our coffee table. I made a sign that says "leave your best wishes for a "ROCK" solid marriage"

If anyone writes something inappropriate we can just take it out. because...

I would be careful doing a guest book like the letter you sign, or the picture frame to leave a message. I am a widow, at my first wedding we did the picture mat that everyone signs (very popular in the early 2,000s) and my friends and family trying to be funny wrote stuff that I did not necessary want hanging in my house forever lol "your next husband will be better", "where is the open bat?" his sister wrote "atleast she is not that slut ____________ you dated in highschool" someone else wrote "for a good time call 867-5309" then that persons brother wrote "Stacey's Mom has got it going on" (my name is tracey but the joke was there anyway)

@Elizabeth - Where are you !? Check this one out!!!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/245130549/vw-camper-van-wedding-guest-book?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=alternative%20guest%20book%20drop&ref=sr_gallery_7

We are doing a wooden board to hang. It's actually five pieces of wood (think pieces of a pallet) attached to each other and have our guests sign with a paint marker. We are going to stencil our names, date and city on it. You can find them on Etsy, but we are making ours ourselves.

I like to sew, so, I'm going to make a quilt and place fabric squares on the tables for the guests to sign, in our wedding colors.

Everyone will sign a beer cap and we will put it in this map

Everyone will sign a beer cap and we will put it in this map

Everyone will sign a beer cap and we will put it in this map

We did the Dutch tradition of a Wishing Tree. I knew I wasn't going to hang anything up afterwards (we don't have a lot of wall space, and that's not really my style), but I do have a box of family letters and cards, and I thought this would be a nice way to save space and have something very personal. Cavallini makes amazing paper items like these... http://www.elizabethsembellishments.com/Bird-Gift-Tags.html?gclid=CJ3hvee19ccCFZCRHwodCHEFyQ

I ordered really beautiful gift tag cards with vintage bird prints. It worked great - the photo is from early in the day, so there are just a few tags, but the tree was covered by the time we left, and we sat in the hotel room in the evening and read them all. It was awesome. They take up no more room than a deck of cards, and I can flip through them anytime, and i can take photos of them for use in our wedding photobook I'm making.

So many great ideas! This is my newest find. http://www.mydreamlines.com/other-products/wedding-guest-book-idea/