As the saying goes, the only two times in your whole life that you're surrounded by EVERYONE you love are at your wedding and your funeral. Since you can't exactly work the room at your funeral, of course you want to connect with all your wedding guests—and help them connect with one another. Your groom's college roommate just HAS to meet your single friend from overnight camp. And your mom's well-traveled boss should totally chat up your groom's Uncle Gary and Aunt June, who just got back from an around-the-world cruise.
Unfortunately, when you're the one hosting the party, it's hard to make the intros and share the tidbits that you KNOW would get conversations started, so to ensure those convos happened—even without their participation—for their 2012 wedding, bride and groom Rachel and Lorne cooked up the Guesterly, which looked sort of like this:
Inside there were little profiles of major players—the bride, the groom, their parents, the wedding party. Stuff you often find on a couple's wedding website.
But the REALLY awesome part was that the "magazine" also included profiles and pics of EVERY person who was at the wedding! Since Rachel had a magazine background and Lorne could work some design magic, they put together a whole book that wound up looking like a mini yearbook of their wedding, and mailed it out a week before their big day. And it REALLY got people talking. Thanks to pics AND text-y snippets, their guests felt totally comfortable approaching one another at the wedding to say, "Hey! You're the guy who loves hang-gliding!" or "How's your Beanie Baby collection doing?"
The Guesterly was such a hit with Rachel and Lorne's wedding guests that they want to design a special edition for your guests. So that means Rachel—who, remember, has a magazine background—calls you up and chats about your wedding guests, and you share a little tidbit about each one. If there are wedding guests you don't know much about (your mother-in-law's college friends or your mom's coworkers) she'll chat up your parents too, to make sure all the guests get a shout-out.
Then you log on to their special app through Facebook, and in 15 minutes you can "zap" them photos of all (or most) of your guests. Of course your grandma may not be on Facebook, but there might still be photos of her through your profile or one of your cousin's. And if Grandma (or another guest) has NO online photo presence, Rachel and Lorne will reach out and say, "Hey, we're working on a special project for so-and-so's wedding. Would you mind mailing us a photo?" This way EVERY guest is represented, which is nice, since it makes even the minor players feel comfortable with the crowd. Plus, I imagine it's helpful the morning after the wedding, when you're like, "Wait, what were the names of the chick I promised to go snowboarding with and the guy who I gave my email address to?!" I imagine it makes the morning-after brunch a little less awkward!
A professional edition of the Guesterly by Rachel and Lorne starts at $3,500, which is obviously a lot—click here to get started—but you're hiring a professional magazine writer (she worked for CosmoGirl and O, so you know the writing is good) and the includes all the interviewing and custom design and printing and postage for getting a professionally printed magazine-y book to each guest. (I got to see one, and it's bound like a copy of Glamour, only on nicer paper!) Even though it's spendy, I just had to share, because I feel like this is something a bride and groom could put together on their own, if they were really worried about people connecting. I also feel like it's something your guests would just LOVE—and keep, which is kinda neat.
Would you want the Guesterly for your wedding guests?
I wish we had thought to put something like this together! You know, because I could have handled exactly zero more DIY projects.