Unplugged Ceremony - Thoughts?

I trust our photographers to catch all of the candid moments during our ceremony, hopefully much better than my grandma's iPhone 4.

I got married 3 weeks ago and I’d it wasn’t for friends and family with phones I wouldn’t have had all of the great pictures and videos to look at before getting professional pictures. Also, keep in mind that your photographer can’t be everywhere. I was like you and thought about asking people not to take pics but I’m so glad that I decided to let them do it. Some of them got great pics that my photographer wouldn’t have gotten because he could only be in one place at a time.

We did not have an unplugged ceremony. It was not a problem. We didn't have a videographer, so maybe that was a factor - but in our photos, not one shot has a guest with a phone out (during the ceremony at least). Our guests are pretty decent with etiquette (as I think most people are...) and everyone pretty much had their phones tucked away during the ceremony. I saw maybe one or two pop up during the entire thing. And honestly, I loved the candid, non-photographer shots our guests posted or sent to me. It was pretty cool having different perspectives in addition to the wonderful photos our photographer took.

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Very well said!

Now a days it's common for people to have unplugged ceremonies since they want everyone to just be present in the moment with them. and now a days you also see a lot of couples have social media hashtags and are really happy for people to share this moment online. i think it's also in how private you are. i'm a rather nonexistent social media presence but i am not having an unplugged ceremony because i don't mind my guests sharing and capturing this moment. i do understand that the phones can be so incredibly distracting though.

I think the unplugged ceremony is a know your crowd kind of thing. I know for a fact I would have family members with their 10 year old digital cameras standing in the aisles during the ceremony taking pictures. So we are making our ceremony unplugged. If you don’t think you will have a situation like this and will only have a few people taking pictures and videos then you don’t need to make it explicitly unplugged.

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Great things to think about! And I am very impatient lol. So I will love seeing photos from my guest while I wait for our photographer and videographer to get the professional stuff back to us! Thank you for sharing!

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I agree, the non-professional photos are fun. Plus, photographers will edit stuff, where as your friends will send you the original. Thanks for sharing!

This is very much a know your crowd issue. After having several friends' professional wedding pictures ruined in their opinion because guests' faces were covered with phones/ipads/etc. daughter and SIL were absolutely adamant about an unplugged ceremony. They got a little push back beforehand, but too bad. They paid a lot of money for amazing professional photos (which included free digital access to all 1100+ edited pictures), which their guests can download as they desire. No matter how great the photographer, there are some things they cannot fix with editing. Daughter was in a wedding where, unfortunately, the excellent pros didn't get ONE picture of the bride and her dad walking down the aisle that doesn't have two women partially blocking the bride because they were standing in the aisle to get their "perfect shot." (And, daughter and SIL still received over 185 cell phone photos from guests, taken at all times other than during the ceremony, before they woke up the morning after the wedding and their photographer sent them an AMAZING 50 photo, fully-edited "sneak peak" about 60 hours after the wedding. For them, that "wait" was well worth not having a single ceremony photo with a guest's cellphone in it....)

View Quoted Comment This is great information. So sad to hear about the bride and dad isle walk shot getting blocked. I’ll definitely take this into consideration. Thank you!!!

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You'd be shocked how completely thoughtless people can be. And, honestly, for us, the worst potential "offenders" weren't teenagers, they were people in the 30-60 year old range. It's a shame, but if people do something to get in the photographer's way during the wedding, you don't really get a "do over" -- that's the picture you have. The "nail in the coffin" for daughter was when relatives started posting photos from a family wedding we didn't attend. It took place IN a Catholic church, and DURING the ceremony they were posting pictures they were taking AND to make that even worse, every picture they posted included 10 people in the background taking pictures with their cellphones. Daughter was like, "OH, HELL NO!" I sent an email to the relatives on our side and said, "hey, the kids don't want this." One particularly snippy relative responded, "Good luck with that! How do you expect to stop people?" To which I responded, "we'd hope that since it's what the B&G want, people who love them will respect their wishes." I also attached the photo of daughter's friend and her dad with the two women blocking the shot. After that, no one said a word to us and there wasn't one phone/camera out during the ceremony. Good luck!

I have hired an amazing photographer and a videographer. I do not want my guests to have their devices out during the ceremony and I hope they all have the good sense to silence them as well. I have put a note on my wedding website about the ceremony being unplugged and our officiant will make the announcement to silence and put away all electronic devices just before the start of the ceremony. I just don’t see any reason to have them out. I know getting those pictures while waiting for the professional photos to come back might be worth it to some people, but I’m fine with waiting. Now, once the ceremony is over with... GO NUTS! Take ALL the pictures!

We're doing an unplugged ceremony. It would be our older family in the aisle with digital cameras, and we really want our family to actually pay attention to the ceremony, rather than play paparazzi. Our officiant is going to make an announcement before the procession. I actually don't care about photos getting posted to social media during the wedding, but I care about the quality of my photographer's work, which is somewhat tied to whether or not her potential subjects are holding devices in front of their faces.

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We have also hired great photographers and videographers (2 of each). I am starting to lean towards trusting them to capture all of the moments and asking my guests to leave their phones put away and on silent. I'd hate to get my photos and video back and see phones in front of my guests face during our entire ceremony, like PP's have mentioned! And I agree, after the ceremony, bust out the phones and snap away!

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That is a great point that I never thought of!

View Quoted Comment I think this is the way to go! The only thing I ever worry about is like if something crazy happens and all of our photos get deleted or something with the photographer. You know... like a freak accident happens and then I am left with nothing. Lmao. So unlikely though, so I’m not going to worry too much about that.

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OMG I honestly never even thought about that. I would die. You're right though, it's unlikely. But how awful! Okay, I am now putting that thought out of my head lol.

View Quoted Comment Hahaha! So sorry I even brought that up! I spend too much time worrying about the most unlikely stuff! NO WORRIES! And you have two photographers, so your chances of something like that happening are even less!

View Quoted Comment Awww and I just saw that you’re getting married four days before me!! Yay for October!

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Just be sure you talk with your photographer about how they do EVERYTHING they can to prevent something like this. A pro photographer should be able to put your mind at ease. For daughters, there was the primary and the secondary photographer (so, two of them backing each other up), then each of them were working with at least two cameras, and for each of the digital cameras all of the files were saved to a separate device every 30 minutes or so, etc. All of that put daughter's mind at ease. Basically, they'd both have to get struck by lightening at the same time for there to not be great pictures of her wedding....