As a writer, the sign-in book was an important part of our wedding planning. Happily, I am still quite in love with our sign-in book. It was made to order by Kristin Crane, an artist on Etsy. She even blogged about it!
In the beginning, we looked closely at books in the wedding section of stores and, like Goldilocks, found they were too this or too that. Mostly, they were too ugly.
We decided that we wanted something with a travel theme on it. We were naming our reception tables after bridges (both for the metaphor that a bridge offers and the significance of the various bridges in our lives) and thought the book should match, at least loosely.
Kristin Crane has a number of handmade and hand bound travel journals. We found a New York City map and she positioned it exactly right so that a few key places were on the cover (including Union Square, where we met for our first date.) Along the way, she showed us the progress of the book in case we wanted to make any changes.
It is perfectly made and exactly what we ordered.
We placed it on the table with the seating cards, to help make sure everyone noticed it since it isn’t as big as a usual sign-in book. As a creative person, I thought it would be fun if we put colored markers next to the book so that the adults and children alike could draw in the book if they wanted to. My husband collects mugs from universities where he has given professional talks and we chose the Georgetown University mug for the pens. (He is currently on leave from GU while he is a fellow at the University of Michigan).
We are happy to report that we received some beautiful drawings and words that we will treasure forever. The book is about 2/3 empty. We are going to save it (of course) and use it for future milestone events.
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