Adventures in DIY: More Than A Guest Book

Just incase you missed my guest post on 
Alecia's blog Chicken Scratch 
here is my DIY Wedding idea that I shared with her readers. 

   Since we started our blog after we were married, I did not have a chance to share in real time all the DIY things we did for your wedding. I like projects that are unique, inexpensive, and something that will last. Most wedding I have been to have a guest book where you sign your name and maybe address. Useful when writing thank you notes, but after that I would guess most guest books get put in a box, never to be looked at again. For our wedding I wanted to do something a little more fun and unique. So this is my "more than a guest book" idea. 

   Background information: We got married on a cold December morning. Between our wedding ceremony and reception we wanted to take some pictures, but we did not want to make our guests wait a long and boring wait with nothing to do. So we arranged for a 'hot apple cider cocktail hour' at the reception site and had a table set up with the makings of our guest book. The table included various pens and note card sized paper. Printed on each note card was one of the following sentences:

"Advice from the heart..."

"A memory shared..."

"A blessing to you..."

"You know you're in love when..."

We included some simple directions on a sign, directing our guests to please fill out a card (or more if they wanted) and then place the cards in a small decorative Christmas sleigh that my grandfather had build. While we finished up with pictures, our guests enjoyed recording memories and giving advice to us. After we got back from our honeymoon, we got to read through all the wonderful notes from our family and friends. We received this little box as a gift, and I knew right away it was the perfect spot to store these words of love and wisdom...

 The lid opens up and there are 4 picture sleeves hanging inside!

So I mixed prints we got from friends with our guest book cards...

 A sweet blessing from Daniel's grandparents.

A joke from a friend.

 Great advice from family.

And special memories from everyone!

Not only was it an fun activity for our guests, we now have a great little book filled with these words of wisdom, special memories, and blessings to look back on and remember all of our friends and family who came to help us celebrate the start of our biggest adventure ~ married life!