why i love unplugged ceremonies!

so there you are on your wedding day, not only are you excited, but so are all your guests! your guest excitement in modern times means they want to document and share it to social media as soon as possible!

but guess what that means? it means a field of cell phones, ipads, and other cameras in the hands of every other guest. it means they are staring at their phone during your ceremony - which is usually only about 20-30 minutes long! it means a sea of cell phones sticking out up in the air, and into the aisles, and sometimes, just sometimes, directly in front of your photographers camera. the same photographer you invested thousands of dollars in to capture you day. this may not matter to you at all - and if it doesn’t - please feel free to ignore. i will shoot your wedding day HOWEVER you prefer! but if the thought of having cell phones up in the air or in your aisle during your ceremony is something you would like to assess further - please read on!

the couple chose not to do a first look and this was the first tike the groom saw the bride. there were no less than 6 cell phones, all on the aisle so i couldn’t even angle myself to avoid them!

i was going for a full guest shot and this gentleman kept jumping in the aisle during the ceremony! i even asked quietly him to please sit down and he didn’t care. the couple afterward was shocked by his behavior and wished they had gone unplugged.

this was a very intimate venue where i could only shoot from behind and in the aisle. no way to avoid long shots of the ceremony without getting a sea of phones in the air.

i do not blame friends and family who do this…they are simply not thinking and love you and are so happy for you! they don’t realize they are getting in the way of nice shots of the ceremony from various angles. they don’t know that you can share you entire online wedding gallery with them when you receive it from your photographer. back in the not too distant past, no one got to see wedding photography unless they visited the couple and viewed their album in person. things have changed, but so can ceremonies!

going unplugged means asking guests to put their phones and cameras away during the ceremony. they can pull them right out afterward at the reception! having a sign, tends to not be enough as guests may not see it. having your officiant kindly remind everyone in the very beginning of your ceremony to stay in the moment and put away their cameras is best practice to ensure success. and trust me, there will be several people who still do it, but at the very least they are discreet and don’t waive them in the aisle prepped to ruin your photographers best shots!

unplugged ceremonies make for not only the best photos from my perspective, but as a reminder to us all - to live in the moment. to take everything in. xoxo