# A Wedding Guest Book Alternative Your Guests Write From Their Phones > An event time capsule is a wedding guest book alternative made of sealed messages: a QR code sits on the tables, each guest scans it and writes from their own phone — with photos or a short video if they have them — and chooses an opening date inside a range the couple set, from the first anniversary to the tenth. Every message is sealed the moment it is sent, addressed to both partners, and opens on its own date, with no account, no app and nothing to install. The guest book is the one wedding tradition nobody can explain and nobody dares drop. It waits by the door, it is signed in a queue, and it is read once, on the honeymoon, before going on a shelf. The idea behind it is sound: get something in writing from everyone who came. What fails is the format. So keep the idea, and change the format. ## What goes wrong with the book on the table {#problem} Nothing is wrong with the guests. The book asks them to be original while standing up, with one pen, a queue forming behind them and the previous page in plain view. So they write what the previous page says. Forty variations on congratulations is not a failure of affection; it is what the format produces. The people with the most to say write the least, because what they have to say does not fit in three lines under a stranger's signature. And nobody can put a voice, a photo from the dance floor or a video of a whole table singing into a book. Then there is the reading. You read it once, the week after, when the day is still louder in your own head than anything written about it. There is never a second reading, because nothing about a book on a shelf tells you when to take it down. ## What a guest does on the day {#on-the-day} Four steps, from their own seat, on their own phone. - **Scan** — The QR code on the table card opens a page carrying your event's name and the few lines you wrote for it. No app to download, no account, no password to invent. - **Write** — A name, a message, and files if they have any: a photo taken that evening, a short video, a voice note recorded on their phone in a quieter corner and attached. - **Choose the date** — Any date inside the range you fixed. Some will pick your first anniversary, some your tenth, and a few a date only they know the reason for. - **Send** — The message is sealed at that moment, and the screen says so. A guest who leaves their own email address gets a copy on the day it opens. A guest can write more than one, and each capsule written comes out of your batch — worth knowing before two hundred people are handed a QR code with eighty capsules behind it. ## A QR code guest book and a paper one, side by side {#vs-paper} This compares two formats; it is not a case against paper. A book is an object, and that counts for something. | | Sealed messages from a QR code | A paper guest book | | --- | --- | --- | | What it holds | Text as long as the guest likes, plus photos, video and voice notes from their phone | A few handwritten lines, and the occasional drawing | | Who writes | Anyone holding the QR code, from their seat, at any point in the evening | Whoever passes the table while the pen is free | | When you read it | On the dates your guests chose, one message at a time, across the years of the range you set | Whenever you like, which in practice means once | | What you control | Who receives the messages, the range of opening dates and the lines guests read. Not the messages: you do not see them first | Nothing, but you can read over a shoulder | | What it needs on the day | A printed QR code, and phones with signal or wifi | A table, a pen that works, and somebody to bring it all indoors if it rains | | What paper does better | It is not an object, and a guest with no smartphone needs a neighbour's help | It is a thing you can hold, it needs no signal, and every grandparent knows how it works | Nothing stops you keeping both: the book for signatures and drawings, the QR code for everything that does not fit in a book. ## The trade: you do not read them first {#trade} A guest's message is sealed the moment it is sent. Nobody reads it before its date — not you, and not whoever set the event up for you. The first time either of you sees it is the day it opens. That means no editorial control. You cannot take out the message from the cousin who had opinions about the seating plan, because you will not know it exists. What you get in exchange is the messages nobody writes when they know the couple will read them over breakfast. There is one safeguard, and it is automatic. Every guest capsule goes through the same automated safety check as everything else on the site, and one that fails it is held before it reaches anyone. The organiser sees that a capsule was held — not what it said. ## What the two of you decide beforehand {#setup} Everything is fixed before the QR code is printed, so that nothing needs deciding on the day. ### The recipients Both of you, each with your own email address — and a parent or a witness as a third. Every capsule from the event goes to the same recipients, and over ten years three inboxes are a better bet than one. ### The range of opening dates From your first anniversary to your tenth is the usual shape. A guest cannot pick a date outside it, so nothing opens at a moment you did not agree to. ### The lines guests read The page carries your event's name, a banner, and a few lines you write yourself and can change at any time: who the messages are for, what to write about, when you will read them. ### The printing One QR code for the whole wedding. Put it on the table cards, on a sign by the bar, and — if your writing window is still open — in the message you send guests the morning after, for those who meant to and did not. ### The count On the night you can follow a live count of capsules written and capsules left, and the list of who has written — names and times, never the messages. ### The margin If more people write than you planned for, capsules can be added while the event is still running. Nobody has to deal with it in the middle of dinner. ## What to ask your guests to write {#prompts} A blank box produces congratulations. A question produces a message. Print three of these next to the QR code, not all of them. ### About the two of you - The first time you saw us together, and what you thought - What you know about one of us that the other should be told - The moment today you want us to remember - What we will be arguing about in year five, and who will be right - One thing we should never stop doing ### Predictions - Where we will be living when this opens - What will have changed about us, and what will not - Who at this table will be married next - What we will say about today in ten years - What this evening cost, and what you think it would cost on the day this opens ### From your own life - The best advice you were given about living with someone - What you wish you had known in your first year of marriage - A photo of your table, with the name of everyone at it - Thirty seconds of video, addressed to us on the date you chose - What is happening in your own life today, so we can ask you about it when this opens Ask the oldest guests for a voice note instead of text. It is the file you will be most glad to have. ## Practical notes for the venue {#venue} ### Check the signal A QR code needs a connection. Walk the room with your phone before you print anything; if the signal is poor, ask the venue for its guest wifi and print the network name and password under the code. ### Put the code where people sit A sign by the door is scanned on the way in, when nobody has anything to say yet. A card on the table is scanned after the speeches, which is when the good messages are written. ### Have it announced once One sentence from whoever holds the microphone — what it is, who it is for, that it takes a minute — does more than any amount of signage. ### Pair up the older guests A guest with no smartphone can dictate to a neighbour, who writes under that guest's name. Seat a willing grandchild nearby and it takes care of itself. ### Let the writing window outlast the party The window guests can write in is fixed in advance. Let it run a few days past the wedding: some of the best messages are written on the train home. ## The capsule the two of you make is a different thing {#own-capsule} Everything on this page is about what your guests write. The letters you write to each other the week before, the vows as drafted, the video recorded the morning after — those belong in a personal capsule, which has a single author and is assembled by whoever creates it. The two go well together: your own capsule opening on the tenth anniversary, and your guests' messages turning up all around it. [A wedding time capsule for the two of you](https://time-capsule.io/wedding-time-capsule.md) ## How you get one {#how-to-get-one} Tell us the date of the wedding, roughly how many guests will write, and who the capsules should reach. We come back with a quote, and we prepare the event with you. The quote depends on the shape of the event: how many capsules you want, how long they are kept, and how much room each guest gets for photos and video. Once it is paid, you accept the event conditions and choose your recipients, and your link starts working — not before, so a QR code cannot go out into a room and fail. The useful moment to get in touch is when the invitations go out, not the week of the wedding: the QR code has to exist before the table cards are printed. [Everything about event time capsules](https://time-capsule.io/event-time-capsule.md) ## Related reading {#related} - [An event time capsule](https://time-capsule.io/event-time-capsule.md) — The full picture: what the organiser sees, what a guest does, and how an event is set up. - [A wedding time capsule](https://time-capsule.io/wedding-time-capsule.md) — The couple's own capsule: letters, vows and the morning-after debrief, sealed until an anniversary. - [An anniversary time capsule](https://time-capsule.io/anniversary-time-capsule.md) — What to seal on one anniversary and open on a later one. - [How it works](https://time-capsule.io/how-it-works.md) — Sealing, recipients and opening dates, step by step. - [What a digital time capsule is](https://time-capsule.io/digital-time-capsule.md) — The definition, the formats, and what a capsule can hold. - [How we preserve capsules](https://time-capsule.io/preservation.md) — Where the files live, what we commit to, and what we refuse to promise. ## Guest book questions {#faq} ### What is a good alternative to a wedding guest book? One that collects more than a signature and gives you a reason to read it again. With an event time capsule, a QR code on the tables lets each guest write a message from their own phone, with photos, video or a voice note. Each message is sealed on sending, addressed to the couple, and opens on an anniversary the guest chose inside a range the couple set. ### Do guests need an app or an account? No. A guest scans the QR code, writes on the page it opens, and sends. There is nothing to install and nothing to sign up for. The only address a guest can give is their own, if they want a copy on the day their message opens. ### Can we read the messages before they open? No. Each message is sealed the moment it is sent, and nobody can open it before its date — not the couple, not the person who set the event up, not us. During the wedding you can see how many messages have been written and by whom, but not what they say. ### What if a guest writes something they should not? Every guest capsule goes through the same automated safety check as everything else on the site, and one that fails it is held before it reaches anyone. The organiser sees that a capsule was held, not what it said. Beyond that check nobody edits the messages, the couple included. ### How much does it cost? It depends on the shape of the event: how many capsules you want, how long they are kept, and how much room each guest gets for files. That is why it comes as a quote: tell us the date, roughly how many guests will write and who the capsules are for, and we come back with a number. ### Can we keep a paper guest book as well? Yes, and the two do different jobs. The book takes signatures and drawings and is an object you keep; the QR code takes the long messages, the photos and the voices, and returns them on your anniversaries.