Wedding Wednesday: The Guestbook

©2008 ZumaPhoto.com

I love pictures! I am a camera geek. I bring my camera with me everywhere and document everything. We considered several options for our guestbook--the framed/matted picture, a vase full of river rocks, a professional photo album with our engagement pictures. In the end, we decided that the best fit for our personalities would be a handcrafted photo album with pictures from us as children, growing up, dating, etc. We liked that it gave us a place to use photos from throughout our relationship (not just the engagement) and to honor the important people in our lives, including our family members who are no longer with us.

We actually already had the album itself. A friend, Sarah, had given me a large brown album with thick paper for my birthday. It was too beautiful to use for just anything, so I had been saving it for a special occasion. It was perfect!

Next, we picked out pictures that we liked and separated them into four categories: pictures of us by ourselves, together, with our families, and with our friends. My mom helped me cut out mattes to frame the pictures and attach them with photo corners. We left a lot of extra space between the photos so that there would be plenty of room for our guests to write.



We contacted Ron Tate, a very talented calligrapher, to write in the album. He studied the laurenscript font that we used on our stationary and within an hour was able to recreate it in our album. We had him write "Jen & Rod" on a page with a picture of me and a picture of Rod at age 3, "With their families" with pictures of us and our families, "and their friends" with pictures of our friends, "Together" with pictures of the two of us, and "Forever" with our wedding invitation. There were several pages following each titled page with more pictures in that category. The rest of the book is blank for us to add more pictures of us as our lives progress.

We put the guestbook out on a table with framed pictures of us from our engagement and bridal sessions and pictures of us with family members that had passed on. I carefully picked out felt tipped markers in robins egg, green apple, purple, and brown. I wrapped them with floral tape and topped them with white silk flowers (the ones you get on all the Pottery Barn wrapped gifts). The pens were arranged in a flower pot with coffee beans. We created a sign to sit next to the guestbook that read "Please share your favorite memories of the bride and/or groom, words of wisdom for their future, a funny story about them, or your favorite moment of the day."

©2008 ZumaPhoto.com

It is so fun to have this keepsake of our special day.