Is It Better To Do An Unplugged Ceremony?

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It sounds like that is the way to go and it will help take care of that concern for us.
Greatly appreciate it, thanks again!

View Quoted Comment Yikes!! That seems disrespectful on especially the best man's part. Was he on his phone while standing at the altar? Or was everyone in the wedding party sitting in the first row? In any case, it was rude of them to acknowledge that you wanted an unplugged ceremony, and then to completely disregard it. Glad that the professional photos turned out well, and that most of the guests respected the unplugged request!

View Quoted Comment I think it makes sense to have just the ceremony be unplugged! Especially if the photographers aren't staying for the entire reception, then by allowing guests to take photos during the reception, you'll get a lot of candid photos of guests dancing. I agree with Shelly, I would put that info on your wedding website for sure. As for adding it on the invitations, I wouldn't put it on the main invite card, but I think it would be a good thing to add to a separate details card that you include with the invite!

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Yeah, at one point he had his phone resting on my husband's shoulder. It was pretty bad. I feel like if you do decide to do an unplugged ceremony, try and think of who the problem people will be and make sure to have a conversation with them about it beforehand. My husband was supposed to talk to his family about it because I knew they would be an issue with it, but that clearly didn't happen.

View Quoted Comment Augghh I hadn't ever thought about that!! An excellent case for an unplugged ceremony lol, that does sound super overwhelming. Thank you for sharing that!

View Quoted Comment Yes especially experienced ones!

I plan on having an unplugged ceremony for the same reasons many people have already mentioned. I don’t want people getting in the way of the photographer/ruining our professional pictures (that we are going to be paying a lot of money for), I want people to live in the moment & pay attention, and I really don’t want people posting photos of our wedding day before we get the chance to do so ourselves! It takes away from our special moment.

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Thanks!
I believe that's what we will do, adding a detail card instead of putting it on the actual invitation itself.

View Quoted Comment Great advice! I agree that a conversation ahead of time could help minimize the issue.

View Quoted Comment That makes sense! Those are all great reasons. I also understand not wanting people to post about your wedding on social media before you do. My fiance and I had people share our engagement news on social media before we had gotten to tell everyone, so we insisted that the posts quickly be deleted until we gave the OK.

Yes, it's better to do unplugged. Less distractions and professional photographer photo bombs

View Quoted Comment Oh no!! Well definitely do what you think is best for your big day. If you’re not going to do an unplugged wedding just set ground rules!!

View Quoted Comment Makes sense to me! Thank you for your input!

I did not do an unplugged ceremony, and my photographer(s) (there was two of them) and they had no issues! I also didn’t hire a videographer, and since my ceremony wasn’t unplugged I got a lot of video coverage of me walki down the aisle from my guests! Just my input ☺️

View Quoted Comment I agree! Ground rules are a must, regardless of whether we decide to do an unplugged ceremony, or if we allow pictures but request people to not lean in the aisles or block the photographer. Thank you for your input!

This is bordering on know your crowd. Some people will respect the fact that you have pro photographers and others will not. I personally have never attended a wedding where people had phones out the whole time or were in the way, but some people think it's an open invitation. We're not having an unplugged ceremony because we trust our guests to be respectful (and they are) and it feels too controlling.

View Quoted Comment I also agree with you on this! I'm hesitant to set a strictly unplugged ceremony for this reason. From previous weddings I've attended, guests took some really cool candid pictures, and the photographer captured beautiful, composed images. Both were amazing, and I think the guest photos helped capture the experience from the guest's perspective.


Our latest idea was to do an unplugged ceremony, but request that people don't put their phones in the aisle or block the photographer in any way. My only concern is whether people will actually respect that request. Did you find that your professional photos had a lot of phones in them? Or were your photographers able to avoid that?

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None of my photographers had issues with phones being in the way/no photos showed phones either. Even while we were doing our ceremony/walking down the aisle, none of my guests (from my knowledge) took photos from the aisle. Or held their phones in the aisle. So we didn't have an issue at all! I agree, getting photos from the guests perspective was the best!

I don't like unplugged ceremonies. I think they're too restrictive.


I do feel it's appropriate to ask guests to stay in their seats, out of the aisle, and to be mindful of blocking the views of the guests and photographer.

View Quoted Comment That's a really good point. I agree that it depends on the crowd. I also haven't attended a wedding where many people were on their phones the whole time (though I never sat near the aisle, so I guess I don't know how many people - if any - had their phones in the aisle throughout the ceremony), and I've also never attended a wedding that had an unplugged ceremony. I agree that you should be able to trust the guests you invite to your wedding to be respectful. I'm thinking we'll have our officiant make an announcement before the ceremony to ask people to keep their phones out of the aisle and not block the photographer, and ask our ushers to help enforce this. Thank you for your input!