Guest Book and Photo Album

When my friend Llyra heard that I was building my own Guest Book, she said, “You’re like a geeky Martha Stewart!” You are probably not as insane as I am, but if you are, it’s not really all that difficult to build your own book. I’ll outline what mine looks like at the end. If you want, I’m happy to make one for you in your choice of colors, design and materials, custom-styled for $125 to $150. (Materials alone ran me near $100 for mine.) Just drop me a line if you’re interested.

The Book
You can of course get a guest book from any old wedding supply store, but I’ve never understood the point of a book with two or three pages listing a bunch of names, and then a whole lot of unused space. And I really loathe the big poofy white satin foo foo photo albums most stores sell. In keeping with the medieval theme…what to do? Seemed to me the answer was a leather-bound book, and I wanted one with a clasp or a tie.

I personally also elected to combine the guest book and photo album into a single tome. The guests will sign in the front, and I left out the lines to encourage people to write more than just their names and in some orientation other than straight across the page. The back of the album will have photo corners added later and then I will insert photos as I print them off the digital cameras and websites and other places they’ll turn up. You could do this without building your own book, if you buy a blank book rather than a “photo album” or “guest book.”

There are some very nice tooled leather blank books available at various New Age stores, bookstores, and nicer stationery stores. Some of them have buttons on the cover for tying them shut, and you can choose celtic patterns, trees, fairies, mermaids, dragons, and a number of other tooled designs in a variety of colors. I’m sure you’ve seen these, though it may never have registered on you before now. They’re generally somewhere around $75-100, depending on size, so they’re not cheap, but they’re nifty looking. Before I decided to build my own, this was my first choice.

If you are in an area where you can attend SCA events, Cons, or Renaissance Faires in time to shop for your wedding, check out the various merchants for leather bound books. They range from really rustic, hand-sewn tomes to some extremely elaborate, suede and metal bound volumes and range accordingly in price from $20 on up into the multiple hundreds.

The Pen
What’s better than a quill pen? You can get ballpoint Ostrich Quill ballpoint pens in just about any wedding supply store. You can sometimes find raven feather or pheasant feather dip quill pens in finer stationery stores. If you’re really insane, you can glue a ballpoint pen ink refill to the shaft of any large, sturdy feather and make your own. There are also lovely glass dip pens available online or through fine stationery stores. I have a pink one I adore, along with some burgundy ink for it, but I left it at home for the wedding. Why? Well…

Do remember that if you choose a real quill pen or a dipped-ink pen, you run the risk of your guests making a mess all over their hands, their clothes, and your book. Think “open bottle of india ink” or “small shaft of fragile glass” combined with “flowing, fancy clothes” and possibly “small children running amok.” I chose not to run that risk and went with ballpoints.

An Inkwell
Even if you don’t use real ink, an inkwell is a nice way to hold the pens. I found one at a swap meet in Packwood, Washington while I was camping. Weird, but true. They can be found in a variety of styles and levels of complexity, from basic glass bottles all the way up to multi hundred dollar ornate creations. Try eBay, your local antique stores, or the ever-popular stationery stores (Google for “fine stationery” and be overwhelmed.)

The Setup
I chose to set mine up with a small bookstand, made by my father. I set the bookstand on the table, which I covered with a tablecloth, and I had a place for the inkwell at the top of the bookstand. I also set two wooden candle holders with two beeswax candles on the table, along with some dried flowers for effect. I lit the candles ahead of time and let them drip artfully down their own sides, then placed them on the table unlit for safety. You might choose to decorate with wreaths of flowers, bunches of herbs, or long streamers of ivy. You might want to put the book on a cake pedestal to raise it up. You might want a particularly meaningful tablecloth, or lace doilies or something. I’m reaching here, because really, it’s a modern tradition and it’s not a huge part of the ceremony. But with the right décor, it can really add something to the ambiance.

The book set up on my coffee table.

My Book

Since I had some experience in making wooden blank books, I decided to try a stab at making my own. I think it turned out beautifully, though I did learn some lessons I’d employ if I made new ones.

Cover

The cover I chose is soft goatskin leather, in burgundy. I got it from Oregon Leather. They sell it in a variety of colors, and also sell suede. In the interest of keeping it clean, I opted for smooth leather rather than suede, even though that would look nice.

The corners are brass book corners I antiqued with some of the chemicals from my stained glass work. Both front and back have the corners. In Medieval times, bosses like these were put on books to protect them from scratching and to make them more durable.

Center Piece

The center celtic knot is simply a piece I found at the leather store and liked. You could put pretty much anything in the center of a book. We elected not to put writing on the cover, but gold or silver leafed letters would look nice.

Clasps

I fuddled a lot over what to do about clasps. I couldn’t find anything online about book clasps except for one site that told the basics of how to make your own. I finally found these, and created my own flap ties out of thin strips of the leather, the clasps, and a whole lot of contact cement. The back sides are tacked down with decorative tacks.

Interior

The coverboards of the book are solid wood, and the endpapers covering them are hand printed paper I picked up at the Paper Zone. Fabric would be more durable and probably a better option if I were ever to recreate this.

I opted to make this book with removable pages, which necessitated a bit different construction style than a permanently bound book. I had the option of using ring bindings, screws, or lace binding. Lace would have been the most “period”, but here I sacrificed the theme for convenience and security. The screws are black and unobtrusive, easily replaced if needed, and can be lengthened if I need to add more pages. (Fortunately, leather stretches and the hasps on the cover will keep it shut even if it bulges a bit.)

Title Page and Random Pages

I printed out the first two dozen pages on my color printer. The facing page has our names, the date of our wedding, and some fancy clip art. The next few pages have clip art corners, just to add some visual appeal. Farther back in the book the pages are just blank, though I may take them out and print something on them later. I can use this to glue in scraps, tidbits about the wedding, notes, napkins, candy wrappers, photos, or anything else I choose.

Bookmark

Finally, I added a ribbon bookmark with a tiny key at the end, just for good measure.