An audio guestbook keeps the best part of a wedding: the people

It feels less like signing a guestbook and more like finding a quiet five minutes with every person at your wedding.

What is an audio guestbook?

An audio guestbook is a collection of voice messages recorded for a couple around their wedding.

Guests might tell a story, share a memory, give marriage advice or leave a message for the couple to hear after the day. People can record alone, but some of the best messages come from couples, families and groups of friends talking together.

One person starts a story. Someone else interrupts because that is not how it happened. Everybody starts laughing. Eventually, they remember they were meant to be giving advice.

That is the recording you keep.

Give people a good question

“Leave a message for the happy couple” can make even a talkative person forget every word they know.

A question gives guests somewhere to start. It can be warm, funny or specific to the people getting married.

Try:

• What advice would you give us for married life?
• When did you know we were right for each other?
• What is your favourite memory of us?
• What should we do on our tenth anniversary?
• What is one thing we should never stop doing?
• Where do you think we will be in twenty years?

The question does not need to produce a perfect answer. Its job is to start the conversation.

Marriage advice is better in the person’s own voice

Written advice can be lovely. Spoken advice carries the person with it.

You hear the pause before your uncle says something unexpectedly tender. You hear your parents disagreeing about how long they have been married. You hear an old friend begin with a sensible answer and abandon it halfway through.

A message might sound like this:

Our advice is to keep laughing, especially when one of you has clearly lost the argument but hasn’t noticed yet. Say yes to the daft plans. Make the tea before you’re asked. And never try to assemble furniture together after nine at night.

We’ve been married thirty-two years and we still make each other laugh, usually when we shouldn’t. That has carried us through more than any grand bit of wisdom ever could.

John and Martha, may your home be noisy, your rows be short and your good days far too many to count.

Read on a page, it is good advice. Heard in the middle of their laughter, it belongs to them.

Add the photos that belong with the stories

A voice can bring somebody straight back to you. A photograph fills in the rest.

With Chorus, guests can add photos alongside their recording. It might be a picture taken at the wedding, an old photograph of the couple or the moment a group of friends tried to record one message without talking over each other.

Each contribution becomes a page with the guest’s photo, their words written out and their recording ready to play.

You can see who was speaking. You can read what they said. You can hear them say it.

That matters when the message contains an old story. Instead of an audio file sitting on its own, the voice, photograph and words stay together.

Guests do not need to be at the wedding

Not everyone you love will be able to make the day.

An audio guestbook can include a grandparent recording from home, a friend living abroad or somebody sending their message the following morning after deciding what they wanted to say.

With Chorus, guests open a link on their phone and record. There is no app to download and no account to create. They can add their message and photos from wherever they are.

It also gives people a little breathing room. Some guests will happily record in the middle of the celebrations. Others will say more when they are somewhere quiet.

Both belong in the book.

Something to hear, read and hold

After the wedding, Chorus brings every recording, photograph and written message together.

Each guest gets their own page. Their recording plays from the page, and their words are written out so the message reads like a letter too.

It becomes more than a collection of audio. It becomes the story of your wedding, told by the people who were part of it.

You can hear the voices. Read the stories. Hold the finished book.

And years from now, when you want to hear that marriage advice again, you will know where it is.

Start John and Martha’s kind of wedding book