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Guest books if not properly presented are often overlooked by wedding guests. Honestly speaking, its just a formality that not many are interested in filling out. Leaving most couples with a nearly empty book at the end of the big day.

With this in mind we wanted to create a guests book for all of our guests to engage in. One of the main questions was how to catch their attention without being too forceful and obvious in our intent. This is when we came across our brilliant idea.

My little niece has been raving about the polaroid camera she got for Christmas last year. She was so obsessed with it, that she took it nearly everywhere we went. We immediately noticed how excited everyone got when they were able to hold pictures taken of them moments ago. This pushed our idea of incorporating polaroid pictures into our guestbook. Next came figuring out how to make it come to life.

From the first glance the interwebs offered some interesting options when it came to the idea of polaroid wedding guest book. Yet the more I browsed, the more I came to realise that this is not a cheap undertaking as most options offered were quite costly. Luckily, my husband and I are pretty handy, so we got to work on our own version of the polaroid wedding guest book.

Polaroid Wedding Guest Book Cover

First and foremost, we wanted to figure out the shell that our guest book would be built around. When scrolling through Pinterest inspiration boards I realised that working with the materials already at our disposal was the answer. At that time we were involved in a design project that evolved around wood working. This is how we decided to go with the wood planks as our covers. We used two pieces of untreated Oak and stained them with a dark finish to match the vibe of our big day. My husband put together a neat monogram and laser-etched it in to the front cover.

Polaroid Wedding Guest Book Frame

We decided to drill two holes in the wooden covers and buy hoops to make our album function like a binder. We got the antique black metal binder rings at Michaels for a decent price to keep the album together.

Polaroid Wedding Guest Book Pages

We wanted to make sure that our guest book looks and feels like an old school photo album. So we raided the shelves at Michaels for phot album corners. The page itself was designed with a space for a polaroid and space for a message next to it. It really turned out great since everyone got to take a picture and put it into our album with a message.

How did it work out on the big day?

It worked great! We put in a lot of time and effort into this project so seeing it come to life was super rewarding. Our polaroid guest book was a focal point of pre-reception space. People had so much fan taking pix and goofing around. I am not the one to brag, but there was a line up to our guest book table! Looking back, it’s been six months since we got married and we continue to proudly display our polaroid wedding guest book in the living room as many of our friends and family love leafing through the pages. It’s definitely a great idea to capture and keep those beautiful memories alive!

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