How do Wedding Guest Books actually work? We get asked this a lot and it's a fair question. Wedding Guest Books work in all manner of ways but their basic function is to record the event from your Guests' point of view. It's a chance for your family and friends to a) tell you what an amazing day they've had b) how happy they are for you and c) give you bits of advice they have on the monumental promise that you have just made to each other!
When your wedding has passed ( and at the moment this probably seems an unbelievable thought ) you'll be desperate to relive it again and looking back through your wedding guest book will make it all come flooding back. I look at ours regularly and I love the heartfelt/drunken/optimistic messages people have written. I especially love the message from my Uncle Brian who is no longer with us. Videos and pictures are amazing but they don't get inside people's heads - and that is what a wedding guest book does.
You can have a guest book that is just there for a written message like this one
or you can have a guest book that is for words and pictures ( be it pictures from a photo booth, from disposable cameras, from guests' phones that they send after the event) like this one
And one more thing - once you've got your wedding guest book, then nominate someone to be Wedding Guest Book Monitor. Choose a bossy friend/busy Aunt who will go around at the reception making sure that every table gets the book and that everyone has a chance to write in it. They'll relish the task and it'll make sure that you get a book full of lovely messages :)