Bride Says ‘Unsupervised’ Children at Wedding Ruined Her Puzzle-Piece Guestbook

A bride says a special memento from her wedding was ruined by “unsupervised” children at the reception.

The bride shared in a post on Reddit’s “Weddings” forum that she had planned to do a wooden puzzle instead of a “regular guestbook” where guests would each sign a piece of the puzzle during the reception, which was held “a couple of days ago.”

She said the puzzle would then be put together and mounted on a wall “so that we could see all the people who were there to celebrate with us.” However, somewhere along the line during the wedding things went awry.

“Unfortunately, a couple of guests were live streaming the entire night instead of watching their children,” she wrote. “When I got home and put the puzzle together, I saw that not only did the kids sign about 20 pieces with their own names, but they also wrote on pieces that were already signed by other guests as well as the big piece for the middle that has our name and the event date.”

She then shared that she was “desperately trying to figure out how to get sharpie out of wood” in order to fix the guestbook puzzle. Following the frustrating incident, the bride said, she has now sworn off allowing kids to attend another special event of hers. 

“Trust and believe, this will be my first and last kid-friendly event,” she concluded her post.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

In the comments, several Redditors offered different solutions and ways to prevent this from happening in the future, including one person who wrote, “You have inadvertently given me a tip: make sure my guestbook is on a cocktail height table so kids cannot reach it.”

Another person asked how big the puzzle pieces were and if she could possibly “send a new one out with the thank you [notes] and an extra stamp/pre-addressed envelope for the guests to send back” after re-signing.

They added, “I know you shouldn’t have to do all that, but if it means that much to you it might be worth it.” The bride replied to the comment, “I hadn’t considered that. We do have a few extra pieces, so this might actually work! 🙏.”

Other people suggested painting over the pieces marred by the children’s signatures “with the colors” of the bride’s wedding. The bride noted that while “painting over them wouldn’t be so bad,” she couldn’t figure out “how to get the scribbles out otherwise.” 

She added, “This just was not in my plans. 😩 I’m ready to abandon it altogether at this point.”