Just call me the guestbook voyeur
By Never teh BrideGuestbooks are easy to find because any blank book of a certain size will provide your loved ones with a space in which they can wish you well. Really fine guestbooks, however, come at a premium because they take time to make and are practically slaved over by their creators. Bookbinding is an art form, though may don’t usually regard it as such. You can’t tell me, however, that the guestbooks below don’t qualify as art.
That shine on the cover? It’s not varnish or lacquer…the craftsman behind these beauties sands and sands and sands and then waxes and waxes and waxes so that the finish will be just right. Would that I could afford one…I have no need of a guestbook myself, but I suppose I could sketch in it or something.
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I love notebooks of all kinds; those are really beautiful.
I saw a cool guestbook idea at a wedding I worked at over the summer (I’m a catering waitress). Instead of a blank notebook, the couple used a large coffee table book of rain forest photographs, which the guests signed in silver sharpie. It fit loosely with their theme and the guests had a blast picking out their favorite page to sign. It could easily fit into a budget, too–bookstores frequently have large format books of photography on their bargain shelves.
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:19 am
We had a photo guest book…we made a scrapbook with a bunch of colored papers cut to 4.5×6.5 inches (but with space around each mat for guests to sign) and then we had an uncle take photos of every guest as they walked into the reception. We are going to mat the 4×6 photos on to the colored paper so we have a scrapbook of our guests signatures and photographs. Including photo developing it cost less than $50 and it turned out gorgeous!
November 3rd, 2007 at 10:58 am
Sweet ideas, Claire and C*! I just read about the photo book idea somewhere else recently, and they turn out truly lovely.
November 4th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Erm..just to be clear, these are photo albums not guest books. Although we did use the album he made for our wedding as a guest book as well. We dedicated the last 8 - 10 pages or so for the guests to write little messages in, that way as we flip through the photos from the wedding and the honeymoon (there was room for both in the same album) we could also see some of the things people wrote.
The couple that received the last one you have pictured are using it as a scrapbook wedding album. So basically you can do whatever you want with these things!
November 5th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Whoops! My bad!
February 26th, 2008 at 8:05 am
These make my day!