DIY Wedding Guest Book Ideas for a Unique Lasting Memory

What is the perfect wedding guest book? A beautiful memory that the wedding couple will look at often afterwards. With these helpful tips and creative diy wedding guest book ideas, you can create a lasting memory with your wedding guests.

Thick, colourful, full of personality and diversity – and a regular at almost every wedding all over Germany: the Wedding Guest Book! Each of its brothers and sisters looks different and is full of different stories, pictures and memories. When asked what the perfect diy wedding guest book looks like, the answers are as colourful as the design options – depending on who you ask and where the wedding couple’s preferences lie.

But the most important thing, the key to not being forgotten, is the same for every wedding guest book: the wedding guest book must be designed in such a way that it is a lasting memory with added value for the wedding couple. Not a loose collection of phrases, but a nostalgic smorgasbord with a common thread connecting everything, with lots of photos and pictures or a creative element that makes it interesting.

It should be a beautiful memory that people will enjoy leafing through years after the wedding. The trendy hobby scrapbooking offers a variety of super ideas for this. Scrapbooking actually means that a story is told in the scrapbook and that it does not only consist of photos and text, but is also created with stickers, painting and handicraft utensils as well as gluing in suitable things that fit the theme (place cards, flowers from the table decoration, etc.).
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And very important: every guest should sign it! All of this sounds like it would be a no-brainer at the wedding reception – but it’s not! That’s why I have put together the most important tips, what you should definitely do and some creative diy wedding guest book ideas to make it as easy as possible for the wedding guests – and so that the guest book for the wedding will definitely be a successful wedding memory, without much stress at the celebration 🙂

The DIY Wedding Guest Book as a Scrapbook

Guestbook entry with photos from the photobooth

Ideas and Tools for Scrapbooking

With crafting tools, anyone can quickly create their entry

From toddlers to grandfathers, offer every guest tools that will help him or her create a wedding guestbook entry in no time. Be sure to provide inspiration tools and ideas to make it as easy as possible for guests to create a great entry.

• Create a Sayings book on the theme of wedding / love
• And a comic book with a theme that fits
• Cut out funny catchphrases from glossy magazines: e.g. love in a flash!, happiness in a double pack, sweet tooth tiger and put them together with the glue stick to go with them
• Stickers with all kinds of motifs, speech bubble stickers etc. and on the theme wedding / love
• Character templates
• Stamp set with matching motifs
• For the very creative: potatoes and carving knife to carve your own motifs as stamps
• Permanent markers for labelling the photos
• A lot of crayons, markers, metallic pens, calligraphy pens, a fountain pen with black ink etc.
• Masking Tape
• Motif Punch
• Motif paper
• glue stick
• Scissors

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6 Helpful Tips on When, How and Where

1. Where do you display the diy wedding guest book and accessories?

This is a question you should definitely answer in advance. Ideally, there should be a seating area with a table and enough space for crafting utensils and for several people to create their entry together in a small group, e.g. as a family. Alternatively, a small table with chairs is sufficient. For parties that mainly take place outside, you can also simply set up a beer bench with benches.

Tip: Should there be a photo booth with instant pictures at the wedding party? Then be sure to lay out the wedding guest book right next to the printer – this is an indirect invitation to paste the photos right away and reminds guests to sign the guest book.

2. When should I start offering the wedding guest book?

As early as possible! There are always breaks at a wedding reception when there is no programme on offer and guests have time to do this. Usually the first opportunity for this is between the champagne reception and coffee and cake.

3. How does everyone find out about signing up?

Simple – through your announcement! And it’s best to remind people to sign the wedding guest book several times during the reception – for example, during breaks when there is no programme before and after the meal.

Tip: Make sure that every guest is interested in looking at the guest book and make them want to do so when you announce the event. For example, make the first pages of the guestbook with pictures of the JGAs and use this as a springboard to pique the curiosity of anyone who wasn’t there – or share an anecdote about the common thread or accessory that should run through the guestbook.

4. How do I make sure everyone signs in?

There are several ways to do this. Put out a list for people to cross themselves off – if that doesn’t seem too controlling to you. Or you can carry the guest book from table to table during the wedding reception. The important thing is that one person actively looks after it – if not you, then appoint someone to be responsible for the wedding guest book.

5. What goes on the first and last page?

The first entry is most often looked at by wedding guests for inspiration – so make it a good example in advance! Whether you use the JGAs as a prelude, or children’s photos of the bride and groom, or write and design a classic introduction about the bride and groom, or funny guestbook rules, or a before-the-wedding and after-the-wedding caricature of the couple on the first and last page. Or you can simply design the first entry as you would like the others to be.

Round off the story on the last page. Either you add a group photo with all the guests, or you give a preview of the future: the couple in 5 years, in 10 years, in 50 years, or you conclude with good wishes for the future.

6. Red thread, story, photos – make it interesting!

You don’t have to be Michelangelo to create a beautiful work of art in the guest book that is a complete work of art from the first page to the last. For this, you provide the guests with enough ideas, creative input and tools to implement them. Your big task beforehand is to think about what the common thread is that connects the individual entries and holds them together, what you offer so that the entries are varied. You’ll find lots of ideas on how to do this in the next section.

Creative DIY Wedding Guest Book Ideas

A crossword puzzle on the theme of love and marriage

There are endless great resources and original ideas to give guests everything they need to make a great guest book entry. The most important thing is to have lots of different craft materials available to make it as easy as possible for guests to quickly create their guestbook entry beautifully.

1. Common Thread and Questions That Connect All Entries

Make sure there is a common thread running through the guestbook! For example, on each page of the book, write a question about the wedding couple and the theme of love/marriage that the wedding guest answers from their perspective.

Or paint a box as a placeholder with the heading: The wedding couple in 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-99 years / this is what I wish you today, which each wedding guest adds to their entry with a drawing or optionally with a short text.

Or put the guest book under a motto and write half a sentence on each page, which everyone finishes writing. For very creative writers, these sentences can also be read together to make a funny story.

2. Collect Memories of the Wedding

Or you can directly ask the guests to collect things from the wedding party, e.g. the song booklet, place cards, the glitter decoration from the cocktail glass or a flower from the table decoration and paste them as in a scrapbook. Write down a line from a song playing at the wedding, a funny quote from the bride or groom from a speech.

Wedding guestbook entry with wishes

3. Accessories and the Polaroid Camera

One accessory is typical of the wedding couple? How about each wedding guest taking their photo with the accessory and pasting this in. With an instant camera, this creates many funny pictures that run as a common thread through the wedding guest book.
A guest book with Polaroids is particularly nostalgic – in this article you will learn how to create a wedding guest book with Polaroids.

Very important: You need photos of the wedding guests to paste in! If the wedding party has a photobooth with instant photos – perfect! If not, then write to the guests in advance and tell them to bring photos of themselves (and the wedding couple) for the wedding guest book. With no doubt, this is one of the best diy wedding guest book ideas.

Discover wonderful ideas for wedding activities and wedding games for the bride and groom and wedding games for guests on Abenteuer Freundschaft. From the wedding darts, the wedding pinata to the wedding guide! On our ideas portal, you’ll find original ideas for gifts and leisure activities for occasions and all year round. And lots of ideas for activities with friends, partner and family!

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