Keep wedding memories alive with a wedding photo guest book
A big trend that has been around since before I started in weddings is having a wedding photo guest book! There used to be disposable cameras on each table, then photobooths became really popular, and now we have the awesome instax cameras to capture our guests; but no matter how you take them, keeping photos of your guests in a customized guest book helps to keep wedding memories alive beyond those professional photos because not only were the photos in the wedding photo guest book taken by your guests, but they also have the opportunity to accompany them with a thoughtful note.
In the days gone by (read: when your parents were married) there was a guest book with lined pages where guests were expected to simply sign their name. If memory serves me, this came about because the couple might be in need of witnesses to say “yeah, they were married” in case there were legal disputes after the fact. But this isn’t the case anymore! Guest books are about having a keepsake of your wedding day and the people who joined you to celebrate your marriage.
There are a slew of options when you’re doing a wedding photo guest book for your DIY wedding, but my personal favourite is when you’re able to tie in the vibe of your wedding in this book. And a great way to do this is to have it on theme with all your stationery. Now this isn’t always a simple feat to attempt because you’re often ordering your invites and place cards and wedding photo guest book separately, but this doesn’t have to be an issue! Enter: Basic Invite.
Basic Invite offers some beautiful products and they make it super easy to design your own stationery suite. They offer a range of options for your wedding, including beautiful designs for your wedding photo guest books. I actually went through the website to check usability and I wanted a sample of their products, just to scope out how viable of an option this was for my own couples.
So, I created a stationery suite for myself (though as you can see in the photos of the sample I recieved; I got a little geeky and created it for Fleur and Bill’s wedding. If you know which fandom this wedding is in, you get bonus points!). Man, was this so easy to use! I’ve used a number of online services similar to this one and Basic Invite by far has been the easiest to use. And when I had issues I was able to utilize their chat function in the bottom right corner and I got an answer to my question within two minutes! When I opened my sample, which was sent in a way that the post office would know not to fold it and ruin my order, I truly did not expect what I found. It was packaged in a well designed stiff envelope and came in a beautifully made up folder that included all sorts of information like the colours available and the instructions for completing a full order of invites, and it was printed exactly as depicted when I ordered on the website.
The coolest part of this all? You can take the suite you’ve designed and have it translate into a free wedding website for you! SO your invites will match your wedding photo guest book, which will match your place cards, which will match your programs, which will match your website!
When you’re choosing the design for your suite, you’re able to fully customize the colours (and they have almost unlimited colour options!) and you can even include foil on your printed materials to add an extra touch of glam to your stationery. Included in the customization ability? Coloured envelopes! They have over 40 different colour options for envelopes. I am a big fan of infusing colour into the details of the wedding so even if you’re going with something basic, you can still use your accent colours to add, well, accents.
When you order your wedding photo guest book you also have a few options! You can go with lined or unlined paper, for example (team unlined over here, but hey, to each their own) and my personal favourite, you can customize the cover to have a photo of you and your spouse-to-be. I’m a sucker for things personalized with photos.
What is really easy about Basic Invite is you can create an account to hold onto your information so even though you might be ordering your stationary at different points in the planning process, because you don’t know who to make place cards for until after the invites go out and the RSVPs come back in, you can go back through your orders and ensure that everything is all cohesive.
Basic Invite offers shipping to Canada (and for a reasonable rate!) and they can display prices for you in Canadian dollars! Which I love because there’s nothing worse than getting to check out only to realize that you forgot about the conversion rate and are now spending $100 more than you anticipated. My order came in only 8 days, even though I chose the cheapest shipping option. And you can order samples of your stationary suite, so you can have the opportunity to touch and feel what your invites will look like (and really make sure you have all the spelling right and you didn’t accidentally put the wrong date in). Ordering the sample is the best way to ensure that you LOVE every detail that you put into it.
Something I see couples stress about too is addressing envelopes. For one, it takes hours to write out everyone’s address right (assuming no mistakes are made) and while the first one might look pretty, the addresses slowly get sloppier and sloppier. What Basic Invite allows you to do is to collect your friends and family’s addresses using a special link (just send it to them! They can input it themselves, or you can do it manually if you prefer) and they will print addresses right onto the envelopes for you. What’s crazier is they can even mail your invites out if you want them too!! Take all that weight off your shoulders!
So if you’re designing your own invitations take the easy route by doing it all (even the website and the wedding photo guest book!) on Basic Invite! AND, if you use discount code 15FF51 you can get 15 percent off your order!
Much love,
