Engagement Party - Message In A Bottle Guest Book

Today I'm sharing a creative DIY project on making an alternative guest book for our engagement party.

I wasn't even going to have a guest book as I don't want to take away from the guest book at the wedding but a few people told me I should have one as it's nice to have some messages as a newly engaged couple or even some pre-marriage advice before the wedding day.

If I had a guest book for everyone to write in, I'm pretty sure the book would sit on my bookshelf collecting dust, although I'd read through it every now and then I really want to have messages from our beautiful guests on display so I can read them and enjoy them whenever I walk past.

Thanks to Pinterest I came up with the idea of a Message In A Bottle ..... Having small pieces of paper that guests could write on and I can then turn into art and hang it on the wall at home.

I borrowed a friend's blackboard and got creative with the writing. Can I just say writing on the blackboard is harder than it looks, I have new found respect for my school teachers and their blackboard writing skills!

The blackboard sat beside the table at the engagement party where the Message In A Bottle writing table was set up.

I also printed out and framed some further instructions for the table just in case the blackboard wasn't seen.

Asking everyone to ..... write a message, draw a picture, sign your name and pop it in the bottle for us to turn it into art for our home.

Next I needed a beautiful bottle to put the messages in. I was going to use a wine bottle but the opening wasn't big enough. My lovely Mum found a large ceramic urn which was perfect to put the papers in as it had a large opening so they didn't need to be folded or rolled to fit so the paper stayed nice and flat.

As for the paper - I looked everywhere for heart shaped sticky notes with no luck.

So when I spotted in kikki.K a black memo pad and white pens which have a blackboard look and suited my theme I was sold, they look really great together.

The notepad was half price and reduced to $6.50 and the pens were $5.95 each, I got 2 of them in case one disappeared! For less than $20 I have my very unique guest book ready to go.

I tied some pretty ribbon to the pens and split the notepad in half and this is how they sat on the table with some special photos of Mr P and I including my photo shoot with our furbaby Lexi.

This allowed plenty of space for guests to write their messages in a bottle for us!

We received some beautiful messages, song lyrics, poems, drawings, and yes more than a few naughty messages and drawings too!

I love how creative everyone was and the black and white together looks really artsy too.

I couldn't stop smiling when I was reading through the messages the next day, although some people didn't sign their name so half the fun is now working out who wrote what!

Now I'm going to get creative and make a collage with the messages and find a large frame to frame them and hang it on the wall.

I will share my finished guest book creation with you when it's complete!

Did you have a guest book at your engagement party?

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[Images 1, 2, 3, via my Pinterest - all other images my own]

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