Wedding Week: The Guest Book

And the full on wedding crunch time stress mode has hit me.  Hard…reall hard.  Maybe that’s because I didn’t even start to think about the guest book until last week.  That doesn’t help things out much.  But when it came to the guest book, I had no idea what I wanted, but I did have a pretty clear idea of what I didn’t want…something cheesy.  I wanted something that looked rustic but was kind of funky on the innards.  So what did we find?  A cheap, $8 sketch book and a few yards of linen material.

Need I say more?  I wrapped the linen around the book to take away that black sketch book feel using the hot glue gun.

For the inside of the book, I kind of went all hog wild.  And by hog wild I mean hog wild stamping hog wild.  It’s not my favorite, I could have done better, but it’s interesting enough and definitely not traditional.

To stamp the pages, I used the same stamp kit from Martha for the favor tags and also a new stamp kit for the borders that I picked up for about $10 and a navy ink pad for $1.

To adorn the guest book and make it more personalized, we decorated a plain, wooden medallion by staining and gluing it to the book.

After staining, I used some leftover yellow paint to add our names and the wedding date.

And voila…finished guest book.

I know, boring blog post.  Can you tell I’m not really into the guest book?  Maybe that’s why I procrastinated so long and waited until the absolute last minute to finish it.  But what I am excited about…the guest book pens.  I know…it’s strange and odd…I may just be that special kid.  But I totally went all out “adorn the pens” on ‘em, using some jute and flower stickers (from the Martha Stewart sticker line).

First, I wrapped the basic desk pens with jute, hot gluing the jute in place periodically.

Then I hot glued the floral stickers to the ends of the pens and placed them in a Ball jar for added rusticity.

After crafting away at the guest book and the pens, it was time to put it all together.  We used the little side table that we had picked up at the flea market a few weeks ago, added some bunting, and placed the guest book and the pens on top.

The guest book and the table are to be placed outside where our ceremony is taking place, and then moved into the reception hall post ceremony.

I love the combo of the guest book with the pens.  I think they go together quite nicely without feeling to matchy matchy.  Nobody likes matchy matchy.

And then throw in the bunting and it’s the trifecta of wedding decor harmony.  It’s like the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon wedding decor.  The linen on the guest book is the same linen in the bunting, the guest gook ink colors are the same color as the ink on the bunting, the bunting is assembled with jute which is also wrapped around the pens, the pens have navy flowers and the guest book has navy ink.  It all goes.

When it comes down to W-Day…not to be confused with D-Day…that would be bad…I think the programs will end up on the same table as the guest book.  So the whole setup will look a little something more like this.

Here’s a closeup of the program basket complete with programs.

Recognize the basket?!  It’s part of gift number one from Marcus.  I knew I would use it someday soon!  I love that basket!

So now our frazzled selves are down to three days until the big ol’ wedding.  Have I mentioned that we’re feeling a little frazzled?!

Pssst…So tomorrow is a big day here…whoopie pie baking day.  We’ll be baking about 130 whoopie pies…large whoopie pies.  So if for some reason we get bogged down by whoopie pie madness, you may not hear from us tomorrow.  But I’ll make it up to you, I swear.