Photo Guestbooks and Murals
You don’t have to be a scrap-booker to have fun making photo guestbooks. These days, they come in all shapes and sizes, and the important thing is that your guests made it just for you. As a side benefit, you finally get to put a name to every face in your new partner’s family – an invaluable thing once you’re married and are actually expected to know all these new people. :)
There are many creative guestbook ideas out there. I really like the idea of printing individual profile type pages for guests to fill in. There’s usually a space for guests to draw a self-portrait or add an instant picture from a photobooth or polaroid camera, as well as some questions to answer like: What’s your favorite memory of the couple or what’s your wedding advice for the couple. You can design your own page, or print one from a site like this one: Free Wedding Guestbook Printable Pages. Provide some markers and craft supplies for extra fun, and then put them all together in one big scrapbook created by your favorite people.
If you’re doing instant photos, another idea is to build a big mural showing everyone’s relationships. This idea works for networking events as well. Start with the basic family or organizational structure on a big poster or sheet of paper, and let people fill in their relationship details with markers by drawing lines and writing the relationship next to the line. It’s a fascinating exercise and leaves you with a great visual of your own Linkedin or family tree. You’ll find out things you never knew.
The photo above shows a scrapbook style photo guestbook from a recent wedding with PhotoBot. It was more free-form, but guests definitely had fun with it. In the past, we’ve had people want their own entire pages dedicated to them where they attached a series of instant photos in different poses telling a story. We’ve also had friends connected by book clubs or other activities create special pages as well.
As with most things at an event, the key is to delegate. Make sure you put someone in charge of production who can help instruct guests and invite participation if necessary. It actually makes the job of “guestbook attendant” much more interesting than it used to be.
Would love to hear how other people are using photos at weddings or how they are creating personalized souvenirs.
