Shopping for a guest book, you may notice the same thing many secular and interfaith families notice: a lot of the options are covered in crosses, doves, and scripture. If that's not the tone your service needs, it's easy to start wondering whether you're missing some unwritten rule — whether a guest book is inherently a religious object, and whether choosing something plainer would look out of place at the table. It isn't, and it won't. This guide walks through what religious guest book designs typically include, what secular and non-denominational designs look like instead, and how to decide which one fits your service, without pressure in either direction.
What Religious Guest Book Designs Typically Look Like
Walk through most guest book listings and you'll see the pattern quickly: covers embossed with a cross, a dove in flight, praying hands, or a stained-glass motif. Inside, the printed language often leans on scripture or devotional phrasing — "In God's Care," "Gone Home," or a verse referencing eternal life. Some are built for a specific denomination, with language or imagery tailored to a Catholic funeral Mass, a Protestant service, or another faith tradition entirely.
None of this is accidental, and it isn't a flaw in the market — it reflects real demand. For many families, a guest book that echoes the language of their faith is exactly right. It matches the readings at the service, it matches the hymns, and it offers a kind of comfort that comes from consistency: everything in the room, including the object guests sign on their way in, speaks the same language of belief the family has leaned on their whole lives. If that's your family, a religious guest book isn't a default choice made for lack of alternatives — it's often the most fitting one available.
What Secular and Non-Denominational Designs Look Like Instead
The alternative is quieter by design, not by omission. A secular or non-denominational guest book typically drops the iconography altogether — no cross, no dove, no scripture — in favor of simple, timeless language like "In Loving Memory" or a family's own chosen title. The materials and craftsmanship stay the same; what changes is that nothing on the cover asks a guest to hold a particular belief in order to feel like the book belongs to them.
This is the space Ceremoria was designed for. Our cover uses a navy-and-gold palette and restrained, text-only typography — no imagery tied to any single faith tradition, and no language that assumes what a guest believes about what comes after. It's the kind of design a lifelong churchgoer, a lifelong atheist, and everyone in between can sign without a second thought. If you're also thinking through what to write in a funeral guest book, you'll find the same principle holds there: the most meaningful entries are personal and specific, not built around a particular set of religious phrases.
The term non-denominational is commonly used in the US to describe services and keepsakes that aren't tied to a specific Christian denomination — it's one of the most-searched terms among families planning an interfaith or secular service. For interfaith families — increasingly common in the US — a plain, denomination-free design avoids favoring one partner's tradition over the other's. Many Unitarian Universalist and Humanist celebrants in the US specifically recommend secular guest books for the services they lead.
How to Decide What's Right for Your Service
There's rarely a wrong answer here, but there is usually a simplest one. Start with the person being honored. If they practiced a specific faith and that faith was a defining part of how they lived, a guest book that reflects it can feel like a natural extension of the service — one more way the day speaks in their voice rather than yours. If they weren't religious, or if their beliefs were private, complicated, or didn't map neatly onto any one tradition, a plain design avoids putting words or symbols in their memorial that they might not have chosen for themselves.
When the deceased's beliefs and the immediate family's beliefs don't line up — a religious parent with secular children, for instance, or the reverse — it's worth defaulting to whatever the immediate family who is hosting and will keep the book actually practices. They're the ones who will open it in the years ahead, and it should feel like theirs. For interfaith families, blended families, or services where guests will come from several different traditions, a secular design is often the most comfortable choice precisely because it doesn't ask anyone at the table to set aside their own beliefs, or adopt someone else's, to sign their name.
Geography plays a role in this decision too, though it's a tendency rather than a rule. In the Bible Belt (the Southern and Midwestern US), religious imagery on a guest book may feel expected and comforting to many families. On the West Coast or in the Northeast, a secular, text-only design is often preferred instead. Neither pattern is a requirement — plenty of families make the opposite choice — but it's a useful data point if you're unsure where your own family and community tend to land.
It's also worth remembering that the guest book's cover and the words guests write inside it are two separate things. A secular, non-denominational cover doesn't stop a guest from writing a prayer, a Bible verse, or a line rooted in their own faith if that's genuinely what they want to say — it just doesn't presume that everyone signing shares it. That distinction is a big part of why a plain, dignified design works at nearly any service, which is a point worth returning to when you're weighing why every funeral needs a guest book in the first place: the value is in capturing who showed up and what they felt, not in matching a particular liturgy.
If you're planning a secular memorial, a humanist service, or simply a gathering where you don't want the guest book to make a statement the rest of the day isn't making, know that a plain design isn't a compromise or a lesser option — it's an increasingly common, entirely appropriate choice. Our design is intentionally quiet and universal, so it belongs at any service, whether that's a small secular gathering in someone's backyard or a full traditional funeral where the family simply preferred a plainer keepsake.
How you're framing the day itself can also inform this choice. A full traditional funeral service often leans into established ritual, while a celebration of life is generally looser in structure and tone — and guest book style tends to follow suit. If you're still deciding between the two formats, our guide to Celebration of Life vs Funeral: How to Choose the Right Gathering walks through how each shapes the rest of the day, guest book included.
Choosing a guest book for a secular or interfaith service?
Our design is intentionally quiet and universal, so it belongs at any service — religious, secular, or interfaith. See the Ceremoria guest book on Amazon — 148 signature pages, archival paper, and a navy-and-gold, text-only cover with no religious imagery.
Shop the Ceremoria Guest Book →Frequently Asked Questions
Is it disrespectful to use a non-religious guest book at a religious funeral? +
No. A plain, dignified guest book with no religious imagery is appropriate at almost any service, religious or not. It simply leaves room for scripture, prayer, or a specific faith tradition to be expressed elsewhere in the ceremony rather than printed on the cover.
What should an interfaith family choose? +
A secular or non-denominational design is usually the safest, most inclusive choice for interfaith families, since it doesn't favor one tradition's symbols or language over another's. Guests from every background can sign it comfortably.
Do secular guest books still have space for religious messages from guests? +
Yes. A non-religious cover doesn't restrict what guests write inside. Guests are free to write a prayer, a scripture reference, or a religious sentiment in their own entry, even if the book's design itself is quiet and non-denominational.
What if the deceased was religious but the family isn't? +
This is a common and understandable tension. Many families in this situation choose a simple, non-denominational design for the guest book itself while still incorporating readings, music, or officiants that reflect the deceased's faith elsewhere in the service.