How I Tied the Knot: Blurb Guest Book

Previously in the post, tying the knot: reception details, I shared some of my favorite pictures of details from reception. Now, it's time to let you all in on the details behind one of our favorite details, the blurb book and lessons that I learned from that aspect of our wedding day. And, of course, some pretty pictures to display along the way!

I knew early in the planning process that I wanted to have a blurb book serve as our guest book. I incorporated our engagement photos into the layout along with pages left blank for our guests to sign and I couldn't have been happier with how the book turned out. Our guests loved seeing our engagement pictures and the book is now displayed on one of our end tables. So here's how I made ours:

I went with the standard landscape 20 page hard copy book with the dust jacket cover. We chose an image for the dust jacket cover and then customized the cover with our new "married couple" name and the date of our wedding. The spine reflected our new "married couple" name and "The Guestbook."
There were a number of photo layouts to choose from, but I stuck with just three photo layouts, which were displayed on every left-hand page of the book. The four picture layout was the layout that I used the most.

But the full page spreads were my favorite.

I incorporated this three picture layout from time to time.

In every layout with multiple pictures, I attempted to keep the pictures to either all color pictures or all black and white pictures...I just felt like it looked better.

Every right hand side of the blurb layout was blank, except for a light border. With 150 guests at our wedding, I assumed that 1 person per couple would sign our guest book and write a short little note to us. Therefore, I needed room for about 75 couples. Spacing it out I figured out that there was room on each page for about 8 people (couples) to sign/ write notes. Thus, I needed about 9 blank pages. So we went with a 20 page book (1 title page, 9 left pages with pictures, 9 blank right pages for writing/signing, and one final closing page). It worked out perfectly.

Here's a picture from our wedding day of the blurb guest book in action.

Lesson Learned #14: If you opt for a traditional plain guest book filled with lined pages, your guests will have as much fun signing it as they would signing their mortgage check. Take the time to create a personalized guest book. Make a blurb book, use the wish tree concept or have your guests sign a signature mat. Whatever you do, just give your guests something to do or something special to look at while they sign their names in your guest book. Bring a smile to their faces and their words will bring a smile to yours when you read their words in the years to come.

previously in the series, "how i tied the knot": getting ready, our first look, bouquets and boutonnieres, socks and shoes, bubbles and getting away, the cake

all pictures by: nicole green. please link back to tying the knot when posting any of these pictures.