Unplugged Ceremony - Success or no?

I would just focus on the WHY instead of simply telling people to turn their phones off. That will probably get a better response.

I don't want to have to dictate this to our guests. But our chapel doesn't permit the photographer to be near the altar. A lot of her photos will have to be taken from the aisle, looking toward the front of the church, and we don't want our professional photos to be junked up by people standing up at their seats or jumping out in the aisle in front of our photographer, like their photos are more important than ours.

So we'll have our officiant explain briefly that due to the photographer's restricted movement inside the chapel, we'd prefer people keep their phones put away so that she has clear sight lines for our professional photos.

Hmmm... good reasons on both sides. I'm still undecided. Thank you all for sharing, certainly something to think about and make a decision!

We did one. It worked for the most part. We had one person sneak a picture as I was walking on the beach. Otherwise no one did. We told everyone prior to. We were very specific about that. We didn't want pictures to come out on social media because we were going to do this all over again back home since we did a dw. What we did was had a slideshow of several of the wedding pictures before we entered the reception back home of the pictures of the wedding in Florida that no one had seen. So it was like the guests in Wisconsin were there!!! The unplugged wedding worked. I would do it again that way too. My suggestion is to make sure you are very clear about it. If it's a larger guest list it is likely your going to have people sneak pictures. But it won't be bad.