Everything You Need To Know About The Voicemail Guest Book Wedding Trend
Soon-to-be-married couples today are taking a twist on the time-honored wedding guest book. Instead of resigning themselves to the classic, hardbound journal where loved ones can leave their signatures and notes of advice (via The Knot), some couples are embracing the audio guest book trend – a new way to record the voices of the guests who attended your special day. Companies across the U.S. and the U.K. have popped up offering voicemail services that make even more creative alternative guest books look like tired old tropes.
This retro-yet-modern style combines the ease and transportation of an audio file — or in some cases even an even more easily sharable video file — with the throwback glee of an answering machine. The affianced also can select the instrument with which your guests can record and even how those sounds are preserved for future listening. No matter how extravagant or spartan your celebration, there's an audio guest book sure to delight you and all your attendees.
There's an audio guest book handset for every wedding vibe
With a collection of styles, colors, materials, and time periods, FêteFone has a handset to suit any style. Evoke elegance and royalty at your fairytale wedding by selecting the Maharaja — a baroque-style phone finished with a faux-brass patina. Or lean into the 2022 comeback of '80s style with the Extra Cheese hamburger phone. Whichever FêteFone you choose, simply plug it into a wall outlet, and you're ready to record.
Delivery and return shipping is included in the price, which varies based on the handset — $199-$499, according to FêteFone. Your audio files will, like you and your fiance, be knit together and sent as a digital download with the option to have it pressed into a vinyl record.
FêteFone also offers virtual services starting at just $149 — perfect for destination weddings. Guests who have traveled abroad can use their own phones to call into a private line using a local area code in two dozen countries around the world.
They're perfect for your ecochic wedding
Are your nuptials dedicated to keeping your love — and your natural resource consumption — at sustainable levels? The aptly named Audio Guest Book, a United Kingdom-based company, has the voicemail service for you. Each of Audio Guest Book's phones has been upcycled from 1970s rotary handsets, making this unique way of capturing intimate messages from your loved ones on your special day easy to use and easy on the environment. Select from five colors — pink, black, blue, red, and white — sure to look fetching with any eco-friendly decor.
Starting at £299, Audio Guest Book will send you one of your top two handset color choices several days before your wedding. After the event, simply return the handset by mailing it back using a prepaid label. Audio Guest Book will return your wedding voicemails to you on a USB stick. Unfortunately for Americans, Audio Guest Book currently only ships to the U.K. and Ireland, but the company hopes to expand into Europe sometime soon.
You don't need a phone line, wi-fi, or even an outlet
With nearly a dozen phones in an array of muted shades (red, black, beige, teal, pink, ivory, orange, green, yellow, brown, and cream), After the Tone gives mid-century rotary that hipster chic. Unlike many of the other telephone-style guest books, After the Tone powers its handsets with AAA batteries (and sends backups!), making this Southern California company the choice for outdoor and other less traditional location weddings. You can even pass the phone around to ensure all your guests have a chance to say hello.
After the Tone does not share its pricing online, but its services work similarly to other audio guest book companies. Your handset will arrive five to seven days before your wedding, and you'll need to return it by mail three days after the event. In less than a month, you'll have your voicemails sent to you. Add another two to six weeks if you'd like your digital files to be made analog as a vinyl record.
Opt for your voicemails to be delivered as an easily sharable video file
If you're a social media maven who's documented her entire wedding journey online, Ring-A-Ding Ding created its audio guest book services with you in mind. Instead of sending newlyweds an audio file (or files) of guests' voicemails, the Louisiana-based company converts their good wishes into a .mp4 video — customized with a photo of your choice — that can be posted to your favorite platforms in a snap.
On the day of your wedding, guests will enjoy Ring-A-Ding Ding's mod rotary handsets — the leading aesthetic for voicemail guest books. Select from one of nine colors (mint, beige, black, mustard, cherry, teal, orange, pink, gray) to be delivered locally — or shipped nationwide — starting at $300. Make your audio guest book even more accessible by adding a live telephone attendant at your event, guiding guests of all ages through the process of leaving you a special voice note.
Your wedding voicemails could go completely digital
Designed for the practically minded, LifeOnRecord allows couples an economical and flexible way to record voice greetings — without having to rent a handset. For just $99, LifeOnRecord will set up a toll-free number on which family and friends can leave audio messages for up to a year. Listening to the words of celebration would indeed be a fabulous way to ring in your first anniversary. Recording space is unlimited, and you'll be notified as soon as someone leaves a voicemail. Listen to, arrange, and even edit the recordings on your computer or mobile device with the option to easily share the links with others.
Want to keep these words of love and support within arms' reach? Add LifeOnRecord's aluminum speaker for just $39. Etched with the phrase, "Kind hearts deserve loving voices," this tiny package houses all of your voicemails and allows you to play them back anytime. LifeOnRecord has over 15 years in the business and guarantees its services — or your voicemails are free.
You can even transform any telephone into a voicemail guest book
Take your old corded handset and turn it into a guestbook that can live forever in your home. In a little over an hour, Alistair of Playful Technology explains to his YouTube viewers how to convert any ol' telephone into an audio guest book that will rival commercial endeavors. You can record CD-quality audio for as little as $35 worth of electronics — the paltry sum it takes to purchase the parts you'll need to install in the handset. But DIYer beware: in addition to rewiring the speaker and microphone components of the phone, you'll have to program the chip that makes the phone operate as a voicemail machine.
Should you take this route, you'll have a recording device that plays an outgoing greeting to guests when the handset is lifted and begins recording, as the saying goes, after the beep. The audio files are saved on an SD card and can be played back by pressing a button on the back of the phone. If you're at all familiar with coding or IT, you'll handily follow the tutorial. And at the end, you'll have a hard-earned and much-enjoyed souvenir to last a lifetime.