Blue Sky Papers {fine Guest Books & Gifts}

Catalog Products, Custom Products

Assembly, Design, Printing

Can I have my guest book personalized and shipped to me so I receive it in a few days?

Absolutely! We can emboss your wedding guest book and ship it out that day! We can ship it overnight for immediate need.



Wedding Guest Book Ideas Wedding Guest Book Ideas & Tips to Preserve Your Wedding Day Memories
Keep your wedding day memories alive with a personally unique wedding guest book

It seems cliché but it’s all so true - your wedding day will be one of the best days of your life. But unfortunately, it goes by way too quickly and the memory is a blur afterwards. Eventually, your memories of your wedding day will be sparked by the photographs, videos and written testimonies captured from your special day. The importance of these keepsakes cannot be overstated since memories, if not captured, can be fleeting.

On any budget, you can find fun, creative and easy ways to capture the memories of your wedding day. And your memories should not be limited to just those that you experience directly – capture your guests’ experiences so you can relive your wedding through your guests’ eyes too. There’s no better way to preserve their memories than with a great wedding guest book! And we have a laundry list of great wedding guest book ideas to suite many styles!

Wedding Guest Book as a Keepsake
Take the long standing tradition of a wedding guest book and add your personal touches so that it’s a keepsake you will cherish. Encourage your guests to leave more than just their signature – inspire them to leave personal messages, such as a wish for the bride and groom, a memory of the past or a thought on the wedding day. Combine their words with great photographs and you will have a great keepsake and experience! A book filled with personality is much more fun and meaningful than a list of names of those who attended.

There is no limit to how creative you can be with your wedding guest book. With a little encouragement, your guests will be creative too. They will enjoy creating something special for the bride and groom, and you will cherish the memories of your event as you flip through your wedding guest book.

Any of our wedding guest book ideas can be easy, fun and meaningful. Enlist a reliable friend or family member to oversee the creation of your wedding guest book. You will be too busy having too much fun CREATING the memories to think about preserving them!

Wedding Guest Book Ideas:
Wedding Guest book idea 1: Make it Meaningful
Invite you guests to share a personal message on our beautiful, stationery-quality cards. Collect them in a beautiful container such as glass vases, punchbowls, baskets and decorated boxes. With loose cards, your guests will not have to wait in line to sign one book. Tell your wedding story by weaving wedding photographs in with the guests' stories and memories in a beautiful and archival album.

You can take this simple yet effective idea and be more creative with the "forms" to coordinate with your theme. Instead of note cards, use rocks with paper tags attached by beautiful ribbon. Have your guests write their message on drift wood if you have a beach theme. Or have them write their message on silicon leaves for an autumn wedding.

wedding guest book idea 2: Book of Quotes
Rather than have your guests leave an unscripted message, prompt your guests with something specific such as "Love is…" and have them finish the thought.

Wedding guest book idea 3: Wedding Memory Book ... Wedding Wishes Guest Book
Another way to have a meaningful wedding guest book is to create a memory book for your guests’ messages. You don’t have to create this memory book alone – you can ask each guest to send a contribution for the book a few weeks beforehand. Some ideas for pages include letters, photographs, recipes, memorabilia, etc. Your guests will enjoy the experience of creating the memory book and they will be inspired at your event.

Wedding guest book idea 4: Polaroid Wedding Guest Book fun
A fun way to capture the essence of your day is to incorporate photos into the wedding guest book. Enlist someone to take Polaroid pictures of your guests. Have your guests attach the picture to the pages and write a message next to the photograph. A unique twist to this idea is to have your guests, in the picture, hold up large letters or a sign that has their special message. What a fun way to recall your special day!

Wedding guest book idea 5: Old Photo Booths
Rent an old-fashioned photo booth and have your guests take pictures during the reception. Have them tape the photos to the pages of your wedding guest book album where they can also write their message.

Wedding guest book idea 6: Book of Poems
Have your guests collectively create a poem commemorating your love and relationship. Start your poem out with a close friend or family member and then have each guest create a line.

Wedding guest book idea 7: Art as Signature
Encourage your guests to express their artistic side in your wedding guest book. You can leave markers, coloring pencils and other fun writing instruments along with your wedding guest book and/or mini-canvases (cards, blank pages in a book, etc). They can draw a picture of how they feel about the wedding day or what they see in your future.

Wedding guest book idea 8: Coffee Table Book
An inexpensive yet beautiful option would be to use a great coffee table book with lots of amazing photographs where people can leave messages on the pages. Better yet, make your own coffee book table of pictures of the bride and groom from a site like www.picaboo.com and have your guest write their messages on the pages.

Wedding guest book idea 9: Look into the Crystal Ball
Have your guests share what they foresee in your future – how many children, the number of bedrooms in your 2nd home, or the number of times you’ll move houses. They can write their predictions on beautiful cards and add these to an archival album.

Wedding guest book idea 10: Favorites and Bests
Have your guests share their favorite part of the wedding or reception with the bride and groom by asking them to write it on nice stationery or cards. Or have the guests vote on the "best dancer," "most favorite toast," "favorite dance song during the reception" or "cutest bridesmaid." The "bests" can be printed on note cards and left out for your guests to complete.

Wedding guest book idea 11: Scavenger Hunt
Have your guests put on their detective hats and discover something about other guests at the wedding. Engage your guests by assigning them to "find the guest who has 8 children," "find the guest who just retired," or "find the guest who just married and honeymooned in Belize." Leave the missions in small velum envelopes hung from tree branches (those in bloom would be lovely) using nice ribbon. Mark the assignees names on the exterior of the envelope. Then have them write a quick note about their experience at your wedding on the back of the mission card as their "signature." Add these cards to an album and incorporate great photographs.

Wedding guest book idea 12: Old Fashioned Typewriter
Martha Stewart Weddings introduced an intriguing option – rent or purchase an old typewriter and leave that out for your guests to type a message to the bride and groom. It will definitely be a conversation piece for your guests!


Guest Book Tips for your Wedding Day

Wedding guest book Tip 1: Set an example
People have a tendency to follow the lead when it comes to wedding guest books. Ask a few close friends or family members to complete their entries before the event so your guests have some examples of what to do. If you have something particular in mind, be specific with your instructions. Your guests will feel more comfortable if there are already a few entries before theirs and they will have an idea of how to proceed with your traditional or creative wedding guest book.

Wedding guest book TIP 2: Let the guest book circulate
Your guests don’t have to leave a message upon their entrance or wait in line, and your wedding guest book does not need to be parked on a stand – let it circulate around the room! Pass the guest book around the room and encourage the guests to express themselves. With this method, you’re sure not to miss any signatures.

Wedding guest book Tip 3: The Importance of Archival Quality
Make sure your wedding guest book or other keepsakes are archival quality. If you want to keep your memories alive and not let them fade (quite literally), you will need to choose wedding guest books and scrapbooks that are archival quality.

Wedding guest book Tip 4: Wedding Album choices
It's important that the wedding album can support your choice of collecting your guests signatures and messages. If you are adding photos, cards or stationery to pages of your guest book, your album should be one that does not splay or "bulge." You will know this because there are spacers in the binding. Most scrapbook albums have spacers build in. Additionally, most screw post albums have the spacers built in so you can add items to the pages.

We recommend post bound albums for this purpose but also for the ability to add and remove pages. Who wants a wedding guest book full of blank pages?! Not only are post bound albums flexible, they are beautiful and sophisticated. Sewn bound are nice because they lay perfectly flat, however, the amount of pages in the book will remain permanent!

Wedding guest book Tip 5: Lined or Unlined Wedding Guest Books?
All of these wedding guest book ideas will work best in a blank/unlined guest book or post bound album. But if you prefer a traditional wedding guest book and you would like your guests to sign their names as they enter the wedding reception, it is best to have a lined wedding guest book to keep the pages neat. It is simpler and it looks less messy.

Here's a Great idea and tip... Have a lovely wedding!
We hope to have inspired you to have a personally unique wedding guest book to honor and capture your guests’ experiences. Whichever wedding guest book ideas you choose, make your wedding guest book one that you can come back to you on your anniversary to reminisce or to give to your children as part of your legacy in a family heirloom! Have a lovely wedding! And have lots of great memories kept!


~ABOUT BLUE SKY PAPERS~

Blue Sky Papers offers a line of sophisticated and elegant guest books and heirlooms, handmade by skilled artisians. From cloth to leather guest books with lined and unlined pages, we provide a wide variety of beautiful guest books to satisfy all styles and tastes.

All of our guest books can be personalized for that special touch. And for that added distinction at your personally unique event, our custom guest books are designed by you, handmade by us.

www.blueskypapers.com/
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Guestbook Buyer's Guide How to Choose a Guestbook?
We have created this guestbook guide to assist you in the process of deciding which guestbook is right for you amongst the myriad of choices. Your event is a reflection of you and your guest-of-honor. You spare no detail when it comes to choosing a guestbook for your event. So, how do you choose, and how do you determine what is important to you?

I. Aesthetic

The first thing you should determine is the aesthetic of your guestbook. What style are you looking for and what is the formality of your event or purpose?

If your event is more formal, you will need a guestbook to mirror its formality. More formal guestbooks range from leather to silk and satin. Gilt edged pages, where the edges of the pages are gold (sometimes silver), are another indicator of a finer, more formal guestbook. Ribbon page markers are another characteristic of fine guestbooks.

There are many styles to suite all tastes - from embellished covers, to simply elegant covers, in all colors and in all materials. With many styles of guestbooks, it’s easy to select a style for you but it can be daunting when choosing a style for someone else. Considering these tips will help, since it is best to mirror the person’s individual style:

■How does the person dress – trendy or traditional, solids or patterns, bright or more subdued colors?
■How does this person decorate his/her home – any particular colors or design elements that are repeated and is any furniture leather and if so, what color and style.
■What color jewelry does this person wear – this is a good rule of thumb when choosing personalization color for embossing and foil stamping.
■What activities/hobbies does this person participate in?
■What is this person’s age/generation?

There are themed guestbook covers, such as baby shower guestbooks, bridal guestbooks, and funeral guestbooks. Each theme has general trends, such as baby motifs on pink and blue covers for baby showerguest books, or ribbon on ivory or white guestbooks for weddings, or darker, more sophisticated design elements to funeral guestbooks. You can choose to follow the trends, or create your own path.

While there are many styles to choose from, there is a limit to the choices of guestbook styles and types. If you are looking for something very specific or want something personally unique, designing your own guestbook may be your best bet.


II. Book

Once you determine the style of your guestbook, you can decide upon the other factors, such as the size, binding and page type. You will want to prioritize your criteria because, while many options are out there, it is sometimes difficult to find the perfect guestbook that “has them all.”

1. Pages: HOW you’d like your guests’ participation in the creation of your guestbook is an important question to ask.

■If you are looking for a list of names of those who attended your event or visited your store, then you need lined pages.
■If you are looking to capture guests’ information such as mailing or email addresses, you will need a guestbook with lined pages or prompted sections for the information you require.
■If you want to capture messages from your guests, you will want lined pages for a cleaner appearance, prompted sections with an area for comments, or unlined pages for unrestricted freedom to write messages.
■If you want complete freedom to have your guests write messages, draw pictures, or add photographs for example, you will want blank or unlined pages.
■Guestbook pages are typically white or ivory. Those with lines or sections typically have a small, unique flourish on the page. Unlined pages do not. The ink of the lines, text and art vary but are usually a soft, neutral color.


2. Size: The size of your guestbook is important.

■How many guests do you need to accommodate? – History shows that you will need space for 60-70% of your attendee headcount because families and couples generally sign together. So, if your wedding has 100 guests, you will need to make sure the guestbook has enough lines for 70 signatures or 70 messages.
■Do you want the book to have a significant presence? - A larger sized guestbook may be what you are looking for. 10 x 8 is large compared to the average guestbook. There are larger guestbooks but they are rare and often don’t meet all the buyer’s criteria. Many photo albums with paper pages can accommodate your desire for a more substantially sized guestbook. Ring bound albums and guestbooks tend to be larger as well and often have the option for lined pages.
■What is the size of your event? - Smaller events lend to smaller guestbooks and vice versa.


3. Binding: The way your guestbook is bound is relative to how you will be using your book.

■Sewn Bound (aka Smyth Bound, library bound): The pages are bound in signatures that are sewn together and then bound in the book. Sewn binding is permanent and typically lies flat when open, hard-bound books in particular. The ability to lay flat on a table is important for guestbooks when the guestbook is going to stay on a guestbook table unattended. Open guestbooks are inviting. Sewn bound books are not the right choice when photographs and other dimensional items will be added to the pages as sewn bound books will splay or “bulge”.
■Post Bound: Post binding is a scrapbook or photo album style guestbook and is perfect for photo guestbooks, or when you want just the right amount and style of pages in your book. Bound with a binder’s post and screw, you will have the ability to add and remove pages and you have the exact kind of pages you want such as a combination of lined and unlined pages. The binding post and screw are usually concealed with a nice flap for a professional appearance but allows for the binding to be easily accessible. Post bound guestbooks’ cover will lay flat when opened but often the pages do lay perfectly flat. Paperweights often do the trick.
■Ring Bound: Ring bound guestbooks have the functionality of both sewn and post bound guestbooks, however, their ring mechanism shows. This is a deterrent to many people even though many ring mechanisms are high-quality, strong and gold-plated, nickel, brass and other nice materials. Ring bound guestbooks have the ability for the pages to lay flat, hold dimensional items, and has the flexibility of page type and style.


III. Personalization

As a great way to make your guestbook personally unique, most guestbooks have the ability to be personalized, from their covers being embossed or engraved to the pages having a custom title page.

■Embossed Personalization: Heat embossing presses the letters into the guestbook’s cover and can be silver, gold or blind. This permanent personalization looks sharp on a guestbook’s cover and is a blend of old world elegance and modern style.
■Engraved Plaques: Engraving your personalization into a stainless steel plaque is a cost-effective way to personalize your guestbook. Text, monograms, or initials can be engraved into the metal and then permanently adhered to the cover.
■Other Personalizations: There are many other standard personalization styles - from printed designs, to custom printed cover pages, and monogrammed covers. Custom guestbooks often have their own personalization type for the most in original style.

Traditionally, guestbooks have served the purpose of keeping track of those who attended an event or visited a location. Today, people are using guestbooks for the same purposes but they are also using them as keepsakes to remember the special occasion. To make the keepsake more meaningful, a wide variety of guestbooks have emerged to fulfill this ever increasing need – to do something a little extra, a little special. See Wedding Guest Book tips above.

www.blueskypapers.com/