Guest books can be a nice addition to your wedding ceremony.  They’re pretty, they’re traditional, and are a lovely keepsake.  Not only that, but they give you an opportunity to involve a friend or family member in the ceremony by entrusting them with the responsibility of facilitating the guest book signing.

However, some people want to have something a little bit more unique to commemorate the people who came to share in their day.  If you are in that situation, there are several unique ideas you can use that will help to make the day your own.

One idea is to create a wedding wishes scrapbook.  When guests initially enter the venue, they have a Polaroid photo taken of them.  This will be placed on one page of the scrapbook.  The guests will also, at a point in the day that makes sense, be given a paper or card to write a meaningful note to the happy couple.  Depending on the size of the paper or card and the size of the scrapbook page, this will either be placed lower on the same page as the picture, or, if that won’t fit, on the facing page.

Another idea is to have a beautiful photograph of the two of you with matting that is four or five inches wide for guests to sign.  This is particularly nice because it gives the couple a keepsake that they can actually display by hanging on the wall of their home after the wedding.

If you are a young, modern couple, you can have a guest book with a technical twist!  You can have an audio or video guest book where people can leave you their messages.  This can be in addition to or instead of a traditional guest book or one of the other alternate ideas.  The great thing about this idea is that people often feel more comfortable expressing themselves verbally than in writing, so you are apt to get some very lovely and sincere messages that you would never have gotten had you limited the guests to writing.

A particularly cozy idea is to have your guests sign fabric panels with fabric paint pens, which will later be assembled into a quilt that you can use for display purposes – or to snuggle under with your honey!  If you do plan to use it and subsequently wash it, however, you will need to make sure that you use paint pens with washable, permanent ink, otherwise the quilt will lose the messages when you wash it, and that would be heartbreaking.

You can also have a pre-fired ceramic plate or bowl that guests sign with special ceramic paint pens.  These can both be ordered online.  After the ceremony, you can have the piece fired to make the comments permanent.  Again, this provides you with a display-ready keepsake that will last forever.

As with any part of your ceremony, it really comes down to what fits the personality of the bride and groom.  You need to keep looking for original ideas, discussing, and don’t settle on one until you find one that excites and feels right to both of you!