The guest book is one of those bits of wedding decor that actually has an honest-to-goodness purpose–it even gets int’s own table, putting it right up there with the cake in level of importance.

And, yet, after the wedding the guest book generally gets shoved into a box or onto a shelf, seldom to be looked at again.

Hardly seems fair, right?

Which is why I always thought, even when I wasn’t considering another marriage as a possibility, that having guests sign a photo mat that could then be hung in the home with a picture from the day made much more sense in the grand scheme of things.

And those crafty wedding vendors have even come up with a silver version with an engraving pens, just so you don’t have to worry about the mat clashing with whatever decor you have in your home.

 

Then again. I’m not sure the signatures would be easily seen once hung on the wall, they might look more like scratches.

At any rate, I figured a signature mat was the way we’d go and considered the matter closed.

Until I found wedding blogs and saw all of the creative ways brides and grooms were collecting these mementos of their guests!

The thumbprint posters are absolutely adorable and I could have easily drawn one suited to us (a bunch of grapes, perhaps?) but I have a hunch that many of our friends would balk at the idea of leaving their thumbprint anywhere not legally mandated. We have some suspicious friends.

Going back to the more traditional guest book, this book of envelopes is very nice–like storybooks with little extras, those envelopes just beg to be opened and the nice and funny notes inside read.

As a scrapbooker, of course I liked this idea of the the fill-in-the-blanks guest book with places for pictures, etc. Of course, these sorts of pages expect guests to spend a certain amount of time filling them out, and I’d rather folks have time to mingle than have their heads down over a page. Those that would even bother, that is.

And this guest book calendar is inspired! Having each guest sign on their birthday is not only unique but useful, too! You’ll never have an excuse for forgetting Aunt Martha’s birthday again. Of course, a perpetual calendar would also work well for this, it doesn’t have to be tied to a single year.

Revisiting the more out-of-the box solutions, this guest bench is a lovely keepsake for a home, which brings up the idea that pretty much anything a person can sign is fair game for a guest “book” stand-in.

So what would we, wine lovers having a vineyard-themed wedding, choose to use as our signature item of choice?

All in good time… (meaning next update, of course!)