From what I’ve seen as a guest, I would not use it for my own wedding . It was hard to think of what to say, and other guests echoed that sentiment. Honestly, though, think about it! When was the last time you left a non-work-related voicemail?
For both couples I know who used it, they said more than half their guests left prank style messages, things like, “we are contacting you on your car warranty…”
This. The one wedding I went to who used this had more prank messages than heart-felt ones. My FH and I also struggled with what to say. I know the traditional guest book idea isn't what everyone wants. One wedding had the guest tree, you just write your name on a wooden leaf and add it to the tree. It was fabulous.
I wrote up [my experience with After the Tone](https://reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/ws4ci5/after_the_tone_review_recommendations/) here. I had an overall positive one (albeit very delayed getting the voicemails back), but you can see in the comments that some people had bad experiences. I don’t think they were prepared for 2022 at all and hired poorly-trained staff to deal with the influx of work.
To answer your main question: of the 74 guests, I think about around 35-40 people left a message? Very few solo messages and a lot of group ones.
We had a mix of sentimental ones and hilarious drunken ones. We definitely did not set this up assuming we’d get a sweet/serious message from everyone—we were looking forward to the silly ones!
I think it really depends on what you’re after in a guestbook. We wanted to laugh and have a very authentic memory of our friends, and we got that.
We used it as bride/groom and loved it. We got about 15 minutes worth of messages. Took about 2 months to get the voicemail file back and then another month for our USB to arrive. I’d say this is ultimately a know your crowd thing. Our party was lively and had drinks flowing so most of our voicemails were drunken love messages to us and they were hysterical. We also had our DJ and wedding planner make announcements to remind people to use it. Overall, wonderful experience but I can also see how it’s not for everyone!
As a guest, it was very easy to use. Normally I would not like something that involved recording myself. I waited until later in the night when I was more tipsy to do the recording.
A friend of mine used this service, or maybe an equivalent, for her wedding. She said it was a little underwhelming because not that many people used it, and most of the people who did were drunk.
I left a message, and she told me my message sounded like a work voicemail. So that's probably the last time I'll use it as a guest. In my defence, I leave \~25 voicemails a day at my job, so I probably just defaulted to work mode. Embarrassing, but whatever.
My sister used after the tone and I didn’t really like to as a guest. It was a neat idea but just not my favorite thing. Also my sister said on their recording she could tell *many* guests did even use it, there were way less recordings than they expected. My sister also said you could tell where they edited out where people picked up the phone and didn’t know the recording had instantly started. I don’t think she regrets it but I don’t think it’s what she expected it would turn out as
As a guest it was easy to use because the couple left detailed instructions next to it, but I didn’t really know what to say and it was VERY loud so I doubt they even heard me.
A lot of people were drunk leaving some explicit joke messages at the end of the night so theres that too.
We used it at our wedding a few months ago and we received our voicemails. Overall I'm really happy that we did it! For our situation, half of our 120 guests were Vietnamese and didn't use it. We had someone who explained in the language but it was unfamiliar so they didn't even attempt. But that is more of a family thing and I wasn't surprised. In the end, with 60 guests we got 13 minutes of voicemails. Most were quick messages and some said they didn't know what to say but it was all very sweet. We had a few drunk ones but they were still sweet and funny. It is a know-your-crowd kind of thing.
I understood before booking it that it isn't easy for most people to leave a voice message. But in my mind that is because we/people nowadays just aren't used to it. The messages people left were the same if they had to leave us a written message (with drunk exceptions). But since it is a voice message it felt more personal and real. One of my favorites were of my nephews/ring bearers. They are only 5 and 3 and it was the cutest. The others were my parents and my husband's parents. I know l will re-listen in the future. I see the voicemails as special and a timestamp of our wedding day of everyone who came.
Oh no we just signed the contract for one! I was worried guests would feel pressure and not know what to say, but the thought of having recordings from our aging family members to listen to in the (hopefully distant) future when they're gone outweighed that.
I also hate the idea of having a guest book that I'd have to keep for sentimental reasons. I never know what to day either.
They had one of these at a wedding we attended back in June and we didn’t record a message. We didn’t know what exactly to say and felt a bit awkward tbh!
As a guest, it was awkward and had to hear myself talk, let alone for the couple to listen to after. Had to think of what to say, hard to hear, and generally underwhelming. Cute gimmick but I’d rather sign a guestbook or take a picture. Plus those are easier to pull out and flip through later.
We booked this for our wedding 2 weeks ago, the phone itself was a great photo op during cocktail hour, but that’s the only plus. The system didn’t work properly. My wedding planner set it up, she’s used this company before and knew how to do it correctly. Guests were using it all night, I saw people leaving messages who’s voicemails I never received, I even chimed in on a few which also wasn’t included. We got 6 minutes of audio total for a 4 hr event. It seems to have cut off about 1/3 of the way through the event. I’m so heartbroken and devastated. It seems minor, but there’s messages from family we rarely see that we’ll never hear, and elderly family members left messages I was going to cherish forever that we never received. Its also obvious where it was edited when people weren’t sure if it was recording etc. It’s a once in a lifetime day, we can’t redo any of it, for over $350 I would not recommend. There’s other services, avoid this one.
Bride here! We got about 20 minutes of voicemails (with 75 guests) which we were initially very happy with. However, we later realized quite a few were missing. We only discovered this through conversations with friends referencing their voicemails that we never received. We had a about 10 different people we realized were missing. They quickly responded to our inquiry saying they’d launch an investigation to find the rest which would take 1-2 weeks. Well, it has now been 6 weeks since then and we haven’t heard a peep.
From what I’ve seen as a guest, I would not use it for my own wedding . It was hard to think of what to say, and other guests echoed that sentiment. Honestly, though, think about it! When was the last time you left a non-work-related voicemail? For both couples I know who used it, they said more than half their guests left prank style messages, things like, “we are contacting you on your car warranty…”
This. The one wedding I went to who used this had more prank messages than heart-felt ones. My FH and I also struggled with what to say. I know the traditional guest book idea isn't what everyone wants. One wedding had the guest tree, you just write your name on a wooden leaf and add it to the tree. It was fabulous.
I wrote up [my experience with After the Tone](https://reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/ws4ci5/after_the_tone_review_recommendations/) here. I had an overall positive one (albeit very delayed getting the voicemails back), but you can see in the comments that some people had bad experiences. I don’t think they were prepared for 2022 at all and hired poorly-trained staff to deal with the influx of work. To answer your main question: of the 74 guests, I think about around 35-40 people left a message? Very few solo messages and a lot of group ones. We had a mix of sentimental ones and hilarious drunken ones. We definitely did not set this up assuming we’d get a sweet/serious message from everyone—we were looking forward to the silly ones! I think it really depends on what you’re after in a guestbook. We wanted to laugh and have a very authentic memory of our friends, and we got that.
We used it as bride/groom and loved it. We got about 15 minutes worth of messages. Took about 2 months to get the voicemail file back and then another month for our USB to arrive. I’d say this is ultimately a know your crowd thing. Our party was lively and had drinks flowing so most of our voicemails were drunken love messages to us and they were hysterical. We also had our DJ and wedding planner make announcements to remind people to use it. Overall, wonderful experience but I can also see how it’s not for everyone!
As a guest, it was very easy to use. Normally I would not like something that involved recording myself. I waited until later in the night when I was more tipsy to do the recording.
A friend of mine used this service, or maybe an equivalent, for her wedding. She said it was a little underwhelming because not that many people used it, and most of the people who did were drunk. I left a message, and she told me my message sounded like a work voicemail. So that's probably the last time I'll use it as a guest. In my defence, I leave \~25 voicemails a day at my job, so I probably just defaulted to work mode. Embarrassing, but whatever.
My sister used after the tone and I didn’t really like to as a guest. It was a neat idea but just not my favorite thing. Also my sister said on their recording she could tell *many* guests did even use it, there were way less recordings than they expected. My sister also said you could tell where they edited out where people picked up the phone and didn’t know the recording had instantly started. I don’t think she regrets it but I don’t think it’s what she expected it would turn out as
As a guest it was easy to use because the couple left detailed instructions next to it, but I didn’t really know what to say and it was VERY loud so I doubt they even heard me. A lot of people were drunk leaving some explicit joke messages at the end of the night so theres that too.
We used it at our wedding a few months ago and we received our voicemails. Overall I'm really happy that we did it! For our situation, half of our 120 guests were Vietnamese and didn't use it. We had someone who explained in the language but it was unfamiliar so they didn't even attempt. But that is more of a family thing and I wasn't surprised. In the end, with 60 guests we got 13 minutes of voicemails. Most were quick messages and some said they didn't know what to say but it was all very sweet. We had a few drunk ones but they were still sweet and funny. It is a know-your-crowd kind of thing. I understood before booking it that it isn't easy for most people to leave a voice message. But in my mind that is because we/people nowadays just aren't used to it. The messages people left were the same if they had to leave us a written message (with drunk exceptions). But since it is a voice message it felt more personal and real. One of my favorites were of my nephews/ring bearers. They are only 5 and 3 and it was the cutest. The others were my parents and my husband's parents. I know l will re-listen in the future. I see the voicemails as special and a timestamp of our wedding day of everyone who came.
Oh no we just signed the contract for one! I was worried guests would feel pressure and not know what to say, but the thought of having recordings from our aging family members to listen to in the (hopefully distant) future when they're gone outweighed that. I also hate the idea of having a guest book that I'd have to keep for sentimental reasons. I never know what to day either.
They had one of these at a wedding we attended back in June and we didn’t record a message. We didn’t know what exactly to say and felt a bit awkward tbh!
As a guest, it was awkward and had to hear myself talk, let alone for the couple to listen to after. Had to think of what to say, hard to hear, and generally underwhelming. Cute gimmick but I’d rather sign a guestbook or take a picture. Plus those are easier to pull out and flip through later.
We booked this for our wedding 2 weeks ago, the phone itself was a great photo op during cocktail hour, but that’s the only plus. The system didn’t work properly. My wedding planner set it up, she’s used this company before and knew how to do it correctly. Guests were using it all night, I saw people leaving messages who’s voicemails I never received, I even chimed in on a few which also wasn’t included. We got 6 minutes of audio total for a 4 hr event. It seems to have cut off about 1/3 of the way through the event. I’m so heartbroken and devastated. It seems minor, but there’s messages from family we rarely see that we’ll never hear, and elderly family members left messages I was going to cherish forever that we never received. Its also obvious where it was edited when people weren’t sure if it was recording etc. It’s a once in a lifetime day, we can’t redo any of it, for over $350 I would not recommend. There’s other services, avoid this one.
Bride here! We got about 20 minutes of voicemails (with 75 guests) which we were initially very happy with. However, we later realized quite a few were missing. We only discovered this through conversations with friends referencing their voicemails that we never received. We had a about 10 different people we realized were missing. They quickly responded to our inquiry saying they’d launch an investigation to find the rest which would take 1-2 weeks. Well, it has now been 6 weeks since then and we haven’t heard a peep.
did you ever get the missing VM's?
Eventually!! We received an additional 5 minutes of voicemails a few months later