8 Awesome Alternatives to a Traditional Guest Book for Your Caribbean Destination Wedding
Hola Mis Novias y Mis Novios!
As I was cleaning out a storage tub in our laundry room last night, I came across the guest book from my own wedding five years ago. I sat down and paged through it — it’s actually interesting because I had two wedding receptions, one here in Vieques and another back in DC. And I was anal enough that I actually wrote in all the wedding gift info in the back of the book so I’ll know forever and always who gave me which Waterford pitcher. After spending about five minutes looking at it, I asked Bill if he wanted to see it. He looked at me like I was nuts and declined. So back into the airtight Rubbermaid tub it went, and there it will likely remain until the next time I am cleaning out the laundry room. If I had it to do over again, I would not do a “traditional” guest book at my wedding. I would do something much more fun and creative and useful that I would be able to see on a regular basis and that would remind me of my fabulous wedding weekend. And that is the topic of today’s blog – fabulous alternatives to using a traditional sign-in guest book at your island wedding!
1 — Picture Frame Matting. Go out and find a picture frame that you like, preferably one with matting at least three inches wide. If you find a frame you like with a matting that doesn’t work, you can always go to your local craft store and have something custom cut. Find a good picture of you and your fiance and tack it into the matting and put the whole thing between two sheets of cardboard to send it down to your wedding planner so it doesn’t get messed up en route. Send along a couple of GOOD pens in colors you like, and have your guests sign the matting all the way around the picture. Put a fabulous wedding picture in there when you get home and hang it on a wall in your home where you’ll see it and appreciate it on a regular basis.
2 — Coffee Table Books. Choose a nice coffee table book with pictures of your destination island (hopefully Vieques or Culebra) and get a couple of fine point Sharpie pens for your guests to sign pages of their favorite places on the island. Then you can display the book in your living room or keep it on a nearby bookshelf and peruse it when you’re feeling nostalgic.
3 — Postcards. Buy a variety of postcards from your destination island and pre-address them with mailing labels (addressed to you at home) and pre-stamp them with postcard stamps. Display them on a table at the reception with a sign that asks each guest to take home a postcard and write you a nice note about their experience at your destination wedding. When the postcards arrive, you can put them in a basket or bowl as something fun for your houseguests to read through, or you can put them all into your wedding scrapbook.
4 — Wedding Wishes. Buy a bunch of very small notecards with envelopes. The escort cards that match your wedding invitations would work for this if you’re the formal type. Display the notecards (with some pens) on a table with a box with a slot in the top. There should be a sign asking guests to write you a “wedding wish” and leave it in the box. Special Note: Don’t attempt to put the cards in your guests’ welcome bags thinking they’ll write notes and bring them to the reception. They’ll forget. Just have them at the reception for them to write there on the spot.
5 — Message in a Bottle. This is cutesy and I’ve seen it done a few times with success. You get a WIDE-MOUTHED bottle large enough to hold a number of pieces of paper. Have cardstock pre-cut into sizes that fit through the mouth of the bottle or can be easily folded and fed through the neck. If you cut it so that it fits through the neck of the bottle, there is a slight chance you’ll be able to get the messages back out without breaking the bottle, but don’t count on it. This is a really neat looking way to do a guest book, but you’re going to end up breaking the bottle if you really want to read all the messages left by your friends. So if you’re going to do this as your wedding guest book, go ahead and buy two bottles at the get-go. That way you won’t be sad when you have to smash the first bottle to get to the messages. After you’ve read them, you can stick them back in the other bottle and display it in your home.
6 — Engravable picture frames. They sell them everywhere now and they come in a variety of styles. My best advice — think small. Something you’d frame an 8×10 wedding photo in. I had one couple this summer that sent down a ridiculously large one that had to be displayed on a big stand. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of pressure to make your writing show (even using the special engraving pen they’ll give you with the frame), so it works a lot better lying flat on a table than propped in a stand.
7 — Engravable bowls, platters and other serving pieces. Same premise as the frame. They give you an engraving tool to use to write on the metal or glass or whatever you’ve chosen. Just be aware that to some people, using those engraving tools to write a message feels like nails on a chalkboard. They do offer ceramic ones with felt tip pens but I wonder about that ink and how it will hold up over time. And the woodburning ones require an electrical outlet and smell pretty funky when in use. Remember how fragile glass is when choosing what kind of engravable item to use as a guest book. It would be a shame to have a glass platter accidentally broken once you get home.
8 — Beachy Chrismas Ornaments. Last but not least, this one takes a bit of time to put together. You can order large starfish, sand dollars, and a variety of different seashells in bulk online. Some of them can even be purchased pre-drilled with little holes for this purpose. You should use fishing line or craft wire to create loops that can be used to hang the oraments up. Provide a small, artificial tree — or you can use a real live plant that has branches that lend themselves to this project – and spread the pre-strung ornaments around the base of it. Provide a number of brightly-colored fine point Sharpie pens and ask each guest to sign or otherwise decorate an “ornament” for the tree. It looks a little funny at the beginning, but by the end of the reception, it looks pretty cool. You can string the tree or plant with tiny white lights to give it a little zip. After the reception, carefully package up all the ornaments and use them for your first Christmas tree as a married couple.
Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra!
Sandy