That Infamous Wedding Tree

I know we've all seen it before, the wedding tree guest book.  It's been used by many bees before me, and will probably be used by many after me.  We already have our postcard guest book in place for the reception, but I couldn't get this tree out of my head.

Mrs. Cheeseburger's wedding tree

I have to thank Mrs. Cheeseburger for planting the seed to use the wedding tree at the rehearsal dinner.  We're expecting around 50 people at our rehearsal, so a small tree will be probably be enough for us.

I used Mrs. Trailmix's graphite transfer trick (and the reverse) to get our names and date on the canvas.  I was in the middle of tracing the back of our names when Mr. E came home and told me the reverse might be easier.  I was already more than half way through our names so I finished that, and then colored over the back side of the date.  On the flip side, I colored over our names, and traced the date.  Both ways seem to work the same, just depends on if you want to do more of the work at the beginning or the end. After all of that tracing and coloring, I filled it in with a pigment ink pen.

Mr. E pulled out his creative skills to sketch and paint the tree.

Mr. E sketching while Gypsy does what she does best

Holding up the finished project while playing the XBox

While pigment ink takes a little longer to dry, it is so much easier to wipe off  of your finger than the dye based ink we tested. We also had to test the micro pigment ink pens so see which would work best for the canvas.

Wow, Mr E. has such a readable signature

A simple sign, wipes & test papers to go with the red, white & black colors of our other rehearsal decor and we're good to go!

Are there any wedding ideas that you see over and over online, but still want to incorporate into your wedding?  I know our guests (other than my mother and bridesmaids) are not reading wedding blogs everyday, so this tree idea will be fresh and new to them. :)