Leave Your Message...After the Picture!

We went through a million ideas for our guest book - from an adorable "wish tree" to a typewriter tell-all to everything in between. We finally settled on the Polaroid guest book. It incorporates Mr. S's love of photography and it's an interactive element with our guests.

Since we knew we wanted to do one of these:

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We went on Amazon and got one of these (and later picked up a second at a garage sale for $5, and it works!):

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We then bought plenty of packs of these from Amazon (our high end was 120 guests, so we bought 6 packs or 60 exposures. We used one pack to test out the cameras and bought another to replace it, and now our guests count is hovering closer to 100, so we'll have plenty to spare!):

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Later, I searched high and low for perfect place to put the pictures. We finally settled on this album from Jenni Bick - I had a hard time finding an album with black pages that was the right size with the right amount of pages. We paid around $40 for the 14 1/4" x 11 3/4" album, but now it's on sale for $20, argh! There's an array of collors (we chose the green, in the second picture) and you can even have a message embossed on the front for an extra fee (we didn't).

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This weekend I picked up some great white gel pens from The Paper Source for our guests to leave their messages. I bought some white photo corners and using a Polaroid picture, Mr. S and I adhered the corners to each page, so guests can slip their pictures in.

We'll include a sign by the book that says something along these lines (I know I stole this from somewhere - thanks if it was from you!):

Please find your picture,
place it in the guest book,
and leave us with your words of
wit, wisdom and well wishes
to help us commemorate our wedding!

Word to the wise - a Polaroid guest book is a significant investment between the camera and film, unless you're lucky enough to have all of that on hand. In retrospect, we may have done something different and put that money elsewhere, but we know it will be a cute keepsake in the end.

So buying things, I can do. But when it came down to the logistics of it all, I was flabbergasted! When do we do what, and how will we make sure our guests will jump on board?! I finally settled on this:

• During the cocktail hour (when we'll be taking pictures) two of our ushers will take the cameras and snap pictures of our guests. We could even have them give the guests a little card to remind them to look for their picture later.
• The ushers and our coordinator will help make sure the pictures make their way upstairs to the guest book table outside of the ballroom (or, we could put the guest book in the cocktail hour room and move it up at the end)
• Our coordinator will encourage folks to find their picture on the table, place it in the guest book and write a message
  

Hopefully having all of the pictures taken at one time when everyone is congregated together will be easiest. That will only leave out the wedding party who may have to do theirs after the cocktail hour (if we make it back too late). Then, it's just as easy as encouraging people to circle back, find their pictures and sign!

How have you managed the logistics of unique guests books? Do you have any suggestions for me so make sure it runs smoothly?