More For Less

Before spending a lot of money on “extras” for your celebration, it’s best to consider several important questions.  Budget is often primary, but almost as important is the type of visual record you prefer.

Be honest as you discuss your feelings.  Are you going to take great pleasure in looking at your guest book, favors, and table shots for years to come?  Or are they likely to gather dust on a shelf somewhere?  If this is the case, you might just forego them all or limit the expensive formal picture-taking to basic posed photos and have someone else take the candid shots.  And, above all, ask yourself:  “How do we make this day more fun for everyone?”

ThePhotoGuestBook.com is the single, attractive solution to the problems of how to better enjoy and afford the several costly “extras” you may be considering.  It’s an entertaining guest book.  It’s a delightful candid photo album.  It’s a personalized guest favor.  It’s an endearing thank-you note.  It’s one-stop shopping that will guarantee a lifetime of pleasant memories for you and your guests.

Ultimately, you should please yourselves, but don’t overlook the following practical matters:

Guest Books

Signing the guest book is a common custom.  It’s steeped in tradition and cultural practice.  Unfortunately, it’s pretty impersonal and just not that much fun.  Adding everyone’s “Best Wishes for Your Special Day!” helps somewhat, but makes for long lines and bored guests.  Wouldn’t you rather have them mingling and dancing?  Many people get missed.  You may have spent upwards of $100.00 for a customized, imprinted register for your guests to only sign that will eventually find its way to your closet and never be heard from, again.

ThePhotoGuestBook.com allows your guests to leave their “Best Wishes” when it’s convenient for them anytime during the event.  They’ll want to do it because it’s fun and personal.  It’s something different.  It’s entertainment.  It’s giving them a way to thank you for inviting them to celebrate this special day with you.  It’s a better way to spend your money.

Disposable Cameras

Single-use cameras have become somewhat of a tradition for most celebrations.  The idea is for guests to take candid pictures of each other and leave the cameras behind for the guest(s) of honor.

Kodak markets them as “An easy way to capture great indoor and outdoor memories.”  Unfortunately, many people find that they’re not particularly “easy.”  Most like the idea and see them as a cheap way of capturing their guests as they celebrate the special day.  Unfortunately, the total cost and effort of producing a small number of memorable prints is far more expensive than one might think.

• Good Intentions – Disposable cameras for each table can be fun if operated and used correctly.  It’s supposed to be easy, but it’s even easier for problems to arise.  Many people think the purpose is to get photos of the guest(s) of honor.  You can’t take a step without a camera clicking or a flash going off in your face.  The original idea of having a picture of everyone who comes to celebrate with you is lost in the rush to take your picture.
• Operator Error – We all think we know how to take good pictures.  Yet how many people forget to charge the flash or hold the camera steady.  These are critical steps for disposable cameras.  Too many pictures end up misaimed, poorly framed, badly lighted, or fuzzy.  Too many cameras aren’t fully used.  Too much film is wasted.  Too many people get missed.
• Lost In Transit – Many cameras go missing.  Lost or forgotten, they don’t make it home.  More people get missed.
• The Basic Cost – The retail price for disposable cameras ranges from $5.65 each for cameras with the fewest features and exposures to $14.99 each for cameras with more features and exposures.  Then you have to add sales tax and/or shipping and handling charges.  Developing and printing costs average around $6.00 or more per roll depending upon the photo processing location.  Providing disposable cameras for an event with one-hundred guests will cost between $190 and $360.
• The Real Cost – Only a few of all the pictures taken with disposable cameras are really worth keeping.  The cost per picture has now increased dramatically.  And you can’t even be sure you get many of the pictures you really want.  Add in the costs of your time and energy finding and purchasing the cameras, the time and energy to distribute, explain, and collect them, and the time and energy getting them developed and printed.  The cost per picture has now increased even more dramatically and you wind up with pictures that are of a very low quality.

ThePhotoGuestBook.com is a more professional, efficient, and cost effective way of capturing the people and moments you will cherish for a lifetime.  Less hassle.  Better pictures.  Happier memories.

Guest Favors

Giving gifts to the people who attend your celebration is part of many cultural traditions.  A favor is intended as a symbolic remembrance of the occasion, but all too often, it becomes much too extravagant and expensive.

One traditional wedding favor – a wrapped slice of the groom’s cake – derives from the old custom of giving unmarried guests a small piece of wedding cake.  (Sleeping with the cake under their pillows was supposed to bring dreams of their future marriage partners.)  More people today are choosing to spend $3-$6 per guest on manufactured gifts or on ones they make themselves.  Even imprinting simple items like matchbooks or napkins, etc., with your names and wedding date can be surprisingly expensive.  Making favors by hand can be time-consuming and may take you away from more important concerns right before your big day.

ThePhotoGuestBook.com photo favor is a perfect, cost effective alternative to spending hundreds of dollars and countless hours on gifts that have little sentimental our keepsake value to your guests.  It allows you to spend less time and money and give a gift that everyone will take home and enjoy for years.

Thank-You Notes

The polite thing to do after most celebrations is to send  thank-you notes to everyone who attended or sent a gift.  You all know how much fun this can be.  You dread doing it and keep putting it off.  People start to wonder if you ever received their gifts.  Eventually, they may even be forgotten.  Your mothers and Emily Post will be so embarrassed.

Let ThePhotoGuestBook.com relieve much of the stress of this potential embarrassment.  Consider sending a photo along with each thank-you note.  Sending an autographed picture of yourselves or individual pictures of the guests taken at the event will make it more fun for everyone.  You’ll look forward to reliving your special day with each thank-you and your guests will appreciate receiving such personalized attention in such a timely manner.  Your mothers will be so proud.