Some couples have wedding breakfast tables named after places they've been together, or bands they both enjoy. But when your w...

Our Bookish Wedding: Books as Table Names!


Some couples have wedding breakfast tables named after places they've been together, or bands they both enjoy. But when your wedding is book-themed, you might want tables named after books you love.

That's what we did. And for a long time, we were struggling to think of an inventive way to display them. Because you need to at least try to be original, right?

Then it hit us: Why not make our own covers for those books, and have real books on each table?


It so happened that the books we chose all had at least one quote about love or marriage in them, and they were often funny or silly. So we thought it would be entertaining to add those quotes on the back cover, as an Easter egg for our friends and family.

Fancy making some of your own, or just interested in how we did it? Well, read on, my friends. And once you get to the end of the post, I'll show you the lot, for your entertainment.

How we did it

First, obviously, we chose the book titles we wanted to use. Our requirements were that they be books that at least one of us likes, and that their names could roughly be used to describe a group of people. For example: Little Women.

We had 9 tables, so we needed 9 table names. It would obviously be best if we used books that were the same size, and they needed to be thin enough to slot into a table name stand if possible. So the next step was to acquire some thin, compact hardback books which we could bind with our created covers.

I bought 9 Puddle Lane books on eBay. Remember Puddle Lane? I do. We had these when I was a kid.


So now we had some books that looked like they were the perfect dimensions for table name displays. To make a sleeve for them though, I needed to know the exact dimensions. So the next step was to measure the height and width of the book. The sleeve would need to be the exact height of the book, but the width would need to be (width x 2) + spine + a bit extra to be folded inside the covers


So, with my sizes noted down, I started a new document in GIMP (other image editing tools are available), sized just a little bit larger than the dimensions I had just decided upon, so that when I cut it down I knew there would be no white space around the edges that I hadn't accounted for (a word on sizing images and dpi: dpi stands for "dots per inch", and you should find out the max dpi of your printer before you start designing your sleeves. If you design and print an image at 300dpi, that means that every 300 pixels of your image should fill an inch on the page. If you didn't know that already, I hope it helps you size up images and get the best out of your printer in future).

With the document created at the size I wanted, I completed what was arguably the most important step: designing our covers.


As you can see in the above screenshot, I used guides to tell me where the borders of the covers were, where the spine was, and the centre of each cover horizontally and vertically. I really wanted it to look perfect, even though I knew that I was going to be cutting the sleeves and folding them onto the books, so they never would end up perfect anyway.

The next steps are obvious: first, printing. I had to buy an A3 printer to print mine. I took it to a stationers that does printing first, but the girl behind the counter didn't know what dpi was or how to change it on the printer settings and she gave me a lot of attitude when I asked her about it, so I thought it would be best to do it myself at home.


As I mentioned before, this image was an inch or two bigger on paper than it needed to be, in both directions. This was so that when I did the next step, cutting it down to the sizes I measured, I would be sure the colour would be edge-to-edge. In this case, the colour was only grey, but I'm sure you see what I mean.


And then, we were pretty much done. After that, we only had to fold the sleeves around the books, just like them books what you buy at the shops, and they were complete! Look at them:











So there you have it. I hope you liked it, and if you're planning your own bookish wedding I hope it inspires you. Feel free to steal the idea, just don't try to sell it to other people. That's just rude.

While you're here, check out our other bookish wedding ideas, and if you really like them, why not consider buying a book or two? No pressure. I'm just happy you're here.

Have a nice day guys!


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