Unplugged

Before I start on this, I'm going to preface this by saying, I see the irony in what I'm about to say.

I WANT AN UNPLUGGED CEREMONY FOR OUR WEDDING.

Yes. The social media manager/blogger wants an unplugged ceremony. But before you get judgey, hear me out. I think we can all agree that people pay a decent amount of money for weddings – I'm talking about the couple but also the families and guests. A wedding is about the two people getting married and starting a wonderful life together. And if you don't know, wedding photography and videography is expensive, no matter what part of the country you're in.

So, how would you feel if you came across this in your images?

[Source]

Now part of me is like "This is kind of a cool picture" and then the other, more sane part of me is thinking "I just paid a fortune for our wedding pictures and all I see are iPhones."

Last year, a photographer's post went viral. And it's also when I started thinking about unplugged ceremonies. I can't imagine trying to navigate through this wave of devices to try to capture the perfect image (which is already hard enough!)

Nicholas and I have talked about it and we both really like the idea of having our guests please turn off their devices during the ceremony (not the reception! just the ceremony!) There's absolutely no reason for a guest to think they can capture a better image on their i-Device, camera, etc. 

Some other social media "commandments" that I've come across that I love also include:

• Keeping some things exciting and a secret. I will not be sharing details about the floral or hair/makeup trials outside of my close circle of friends and family.

• Asking our guests to wait until after the ceremony to post – asking my bridesmaids to not share pictures on social media of me in my dress, asking guests to wait to post images of the two of us until we post our own image first, etc.

• Asking our guests to stay out of the way! I can't imagine our photographer having to elbow his way through phones and personal cameras to try to get a shot of our first dance.

• Flash IS the enemy! Repeat that. And now repeat it again. One of my biggest pet peeves is when a museum or an exhibit that asks you to please NOT use flash photography and people still do it! Like whyyyyyyyy!? So let's stay out of the photographer's way and not ruin what would have been a near-perfect picture with the flash of a cell phone or another camera!

For those of you that have had a wedding already, what did you do? And for those that have yet to get married, what do you think about an unplugged ceremony – either as a guest or for your own wedding?