signed photo mats

 

 When Derek and I got married five years ago, I decided that a traditional guest book wasn't for us. After all we were having a small wedding (just 50 people) which I'm sure would have just filled 2 pages in an entire guest book. So, I picked up a photo mat, and frame and had all of our guests write their well wishes for us, and sign the photo mat. I know that photo mats aren't so new anymore (although they definitely weren't this common 5 years ago!) but I learned a few things from our wedding frame. So, if you're doing a signed photo mat use a low tack tape (painters tape) to cover up the part of the photo mat that will be hidden by the photo frame. Just pop the glass out of the frame, put the photo mat behind the frame, and a make a small mark with a pencil on each side of the photo mat. Then cover with tape so that no one signs too close to the edge. Some of our wedding wishes were a little cut off. Also, all of my favorite wedding pictures were taken in portrait mode, so I wish that I would have had the mat cut the other way. I don't know what I was thinking when I had it cut that way.

When Claire was born, I decided that I wanted to have another signed photo mat of all of her first visitors. I even remembered to take it to the hospital to have my Doctor and nurses sign it. My only regret is that I didn't buy more than one frame, because I searched high and low for the same/similar frame for Simon and the one that I ended up buying is quite a bit smaller than Claire's. Right now I have all of the frames hanging in the living room, but eventually I'll move the kids frames to their rooms as a reminder to them who was there to help celebrate their birth.

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