Is It Better To Do An Unplugged Ceremony?

We're thinking of doing an unplugged ceremony for sure. Reception we don't care about too much because that's all fun! I just want to make sure we have some really nice photos during the ceremony because that's where all the intimate stuff happens. I'd hate to walk down the aisle or have our first kiss with 3 heads and 7 phones in the air (random numbers but you get my point).

View Quoted Comment Very cool, glad it all worked out!! Thank you for your input!

View Quoted Comment I totally agree!! At minimum, we're planning to ask our officiant to make an announcement before the ceremony to request that everyone keeps their phones/arms out of the aisle, and that no one blocks the photographer.

View Quoted Comment I agree with you on the reception for sure! Dancing/candid photos can turn out so fun, and guests usually do a pretty good job of capturing those throughout the night. And I also totally agree with your point about not wanting random heads/arms/phones/etc all in your ceremony photos! Those are special moments, and deserve to be distraction free. I'm sure your photographer will also appreciate the unplugged ceremony, since it will be easier for them to capture all those events!

View Quoted Comment Exactly. I just hope everyone respects it. I hear stories, just like some of these comments, where some people don't care and do it anyway and ruin what could have been a perfect photo. I'd really hate for that to happen!

I honestly think this depends on your guests and if they will see the sign and respect it or not. My husband and I did not do an unplugged ceremony and even though we didn't do one, we did not have any issues with our guests and their phones during our ceremony. If some guests did have phones out, our photographer did a great job of dodging them and we didn't see anyone with their photos out in our photos.

On the other hand, my husband and I went to a wedding in October where they had the unplugged ceremony sign. Before the ceremony started their wedding planner made an announcement about it and during the ceremony many of the guests had their photos out taking photos and videos. Because of this, the wedding planner was running from one side of the ceremony chairs to the other reminding people it was an unplugged ceremony asking them to put their phones away. I'm not going to lie, I spent more time during the ceremony watching him run around telling people about their phones than I did watching the actual ceremony.

View Quoted Comment That's awesome that you didn't have any issues with people getting their phones in the way of the photographer! I agree that it depends on the guests. Great point about the wedding planner who had to spend the whole ceremony enforcing the unplugged request - it may be easier just to allow photos, but make a request to keep phones out of the aisles/air and not block the photographer. Hopefully people will be respectful!