Building Site for Wife's Birthday - Suggestions for Template and Messages?

Hello,

I appreciate the expertise of everyone in the forums and am not looking for free web design, but am hoping to grab some quick, top of the head suggestions from more experienced users.

I'm building a surprise website for my wife's 50th birthday where I'll share pictures and greeting videos that family and friends are sending to me.  I'm familiar with galleries and embedding YouTube videos and creating pages from my other two SS sites. 

But, I'm not a great designer or visual artist.  Hoping for thoughts on a couple of quick questions:

• What template(s) might work best?  I'm assuming something in the portfolio family with an image-driven landing page.
• Is there a way for visitors to leave messages on the site?  My first thought is to allow comments on a blog page / post but is there a better way?

Thank you very much in advance for any help.

Dave

Comments in the blog are the best way, and a blog page is also the best way.

 How about this 7.1 starting design, simple layout for both blog and images, not a lot of extra stuff to get in the way:

https://grove-demo.squarespace.com/

Thank you!  Appreciate the advice.

Dave