Celebrations of life
A celebration of life guest book the family will open again
The guest book at a service records who came. What families find themselves wanting, in the months after, is what those people carried in with them — the photographs, the stories, the sound of a familiar voice. This guest book gathers those instead, through a code on the order of service or a link in the notice, onto one private page the family keeps.
One payment from $29 · No app for your guests · No account to create
Planning the service itself too? Explore the $79 Memorial Website bundle
A line of names, when what you wanted was the stories
The book on the table at a service does its job: it tells the family who was there. But its physics are unkind — a queue at the door, a borrowed pen, a moment in which nobody can think of what to write. What people actually know — the photographs from 1974, the story from the office, the thing she always said — never fits on the line.
And the people who knew them longest are often the ones who cannot be in the room at all: the cousin abroad, the oldest friend who no longer travels. A book on a table asks nothing of them, and so receives nothing from them.
An online guest book asks differently. The code sits quietly on the order of service; the link travels with the notice or the family group chat. People answer when they are ready — at the reception, that evening, or three weeks later when the shoebox of photographs comes down from the shelf.
One code, start to finish
Before, during and after
Before the service
One line in the notice
Create the page, set every word yourself, and add the link to the notice or the code to the order of service. Relatives far away can begin before the day arrives — often they are the first to, because distance is exactly the problem this solves.
On the day
Quiet, and without a queue
There is no station to visit and no line to stand in. People scan from their seat, or from home, whenever the moment allows — an old photograph rephotographed with the phone, a memory written down, a message spoken aloud. Each arrives privately; nothing is broadcast to the room.
In the weeks after
It stays open as long as you need
Memories do not keep to schedules, so the guest book does not either — uploads can stay open for weeks or months, for as long as you choose. Everything gathers on one private page the family can return to, and every original can be downloaded and kept.
What people can leave
Photographs the family has never seen
Guests photograph old prints with their phones and add them in seconds. Decades of holidays, workplaces and friendships come back this way — pictures the family did not know existed until they arrived.
Spoken memories
A story told out loud keeps the pauses and the laugh in the middle — the parts writing loses. People record directly in the browser, with nothing to install, from the service or from the other side of the world.
Written tributes
The prompt asks what they would like the family to know, and gives them room and time. What comes back is not a line above a signature; it is a letter.
Video memories (Plus)
Some families invite short video messages — a memory told to camera, often by someone who could not attend. Up to 60 seconds each, included with the Plus plan, and entirely optional.
Not a mockup
Open a real event page
Every example on our demo page is a working event running in the product — the countdown before the day, the collecting page during it, and the finished page afterwards. The layout and wording change with the occasion, but the mechanics are identical to what is described here.
See a live demoWhat you print, if you print at all
A link alone is enough for many families. If you want something physical, the files are ready the moment the page exists, with every word yours to set:
- A discreet card in 4×6 and 5×7 for the welcome table or the reception
- Letter and A4 fold-over cards for a memory table
- The QR code as SVG and a 4096px PNG for the order of service or a sign
- A share image sized for sending to relatives along with the notice
Questions people ask
- Is an online guest book appropriate for a funeral or celebration of life?
- It is as appropriate as you make it — and you make all of it: the words on the page, the prompts people see, the wording on anything you print. Nothing is decorated or celebratory unless you choose it to be, and nothing appears on the page without passing through your hands first.
- Can people sign it without coming to the service?
- Yes — for many families that is the point. The link works from anywhere, and relatives abroad add photographs and memories exactly as the people in the room do. Often the photographs that surprise the family most come from the people who could not come.
- How long can it stay open?
- As long as you need. Many families leave the guest book open for weeks or months — stories surface slowly, and old photographs turn up long after the day itself. You close it from your dashboard whenever it feels complete.
- Who can see it?
- Only people with the link. The page is never listed anywhere public, search engines are instructed not to index it, and you can remove anything at any time. It is the family's page, not a public tribute wall.
- What does it cost?
- One payment — $29, or $49 to keep the originals downloadable for 24 months instead of 6 and have your complete archive prepared automatically before anything expires. There is no subscription, and no cost to the people signing.
- What do we do with everything afterwards?
- Download it. Every photograph, recording and written tribute comes down as a ZIP of the original files — for many families, the photographs collected this way become the family archive.
One payment, one event, yours to keep
$29 for everything above, with originals kept 6 months. $49 extends that to 24 months and prepares your full archive automatically before anything expires. No subscription either way.
Planning something else?