Wedding Guest Photo Book

Traditionally at weddings there is a guest sign-in book. It used to be that the guests signed the book and scribe a personal message to the newlyweds at the wedding or reception site. I've noticed over time it's become more of an autograph book for the guests rather than a book of wisdom. I've seen some new traditions of signing the matte around an enormously large over-sized picture of the bride and groom...where the heck is that going to go after the honeymoon is over? But I have seen the cute platters you can sign, very cute! Or the quilt thing...WAY TOO MUCH work to just go writing all over it. Anyway, this tradition has potential....as one of my customers discovered.

A Wedding Guest Photo Book! I would have never thought of it, but one of my customers recently made a book for her daughter who was getting married. She wanted something original and different. She didn't want the typical "Sign your name thing"...she wanted something beautiful, but simple, and something that would last forever...something her daughter would want to keep 5, 10, even 20 years after her wedding.

I asked myself, "Self, where is your guest sign-in book?" And I struggled to remember, but I'm almost positive I threw it away about 3 years after we got married. It was just a bunch of scribbled names and I didn't really see the thrill of keeping it...so I'm pretty sure I dumped it. Matter of fact, I think I had one of those ugly feather pens....oh, my gosh I think so. Uhhhh! Why.......

Anyway, after hearing what my customer did I realized there is an entirely new twist to the guest sign-in book tradition. She took all kinds of her daughter's and soon-to-be son-in-law's pictures from youth, teens, dating, college, engagement and changed them all to black and white photos. (This can be done at home in photo software or by a professional). She scanned all the paper photos and put them onto disc. Others were already digital so they were in her computer ready to be edited.

After editing and coloring the pictures the way she wanted them she opened up a new project in her Cherish Bound publishing center and created an 11x8 landscape Cherish Bound photo book and dropped in all the photos in the available templates. No words, no captions, just pictures. She left plenty of space around the photos for guests to not only sign their name, but have room to write beautiful sentiments and words of wisdom.

The cover was STUNNING....just a full-bleed large black and white candid picture of the couple on the beach. She did add text to the cover, their names and the date of the wedding, but that was it. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! This keepsake will never be stored in an attic or brown box. It has earned its right to be part of this couple's decor forever.

Sigh....just love this picture.
I remember when....life was that calm and quiet, no throw-up on my pretty white dress, actually when I looked good in a white dress. Moving on....