Photo courtesy of Alexandria Monette Photography

This topic is near and dear to my heart as a Temecula Wedding Photographer. It makes me leap for joy when I hear that my brides and grooms decide to have an unplugged wedding. While an unplugged wedding might not be for all, there are multiple reasons on the pro side of the Pro-Con list!

Having an unplugged wedding will ensure having high-quality photos of your wedding day without distractions in the aisleway. I can’t tell you how many times as a photographer, I’ve had to work around a “guest photographer” Although their intentions are golden, I’m constantly having to make sure I’m not getting them in pictures, not to mention the havoc their flashes play on my images. When it comes to a white dress, an external flash can make for a level of overexposure that in many cases is un-salvageable.

Another big reason to kindly ask your guests to put away their phones and iPads is the first look. (Don’t know what a first look is? Check out this blog post!) In cases where the bride and groom haven’t scheduled a first look, it’s not rare that some of the guests see the bride far before her groom does. Many of these guests don’t take into consideration that the groom hasn’t yet seen the bride, and promptly uploads these sub-par snapshots onto various social media platforms. I can think of three instances off the top of my head where the grooms first glimpse of his bride was not walking down the isle, but in-fact on a friend’s Instagram. How frustrating this must have been for both the bride and groom!

Photo courtesy of stevie dee photography

When you hire us as your photographers on your wedding day, you put a lot of faith and trust in us to capture your wedding day. By having the officiant make an announcement to the guests about putting your devices away makes your guest have faith in us too!  It tells them that YOU trust US to capture and deliver the best images possible. As you can see in the image above, 4 guests are in the aisle-way preventing the photographer to capture the exchanging of rings. Luckily the photographer kindly asked them to take a seat so she could document such an important moment or this could have never been taken!

Coordinating an unplugged wedding or ceremony is not a daunting task! Simply place a sign at the entrance to the ceremony with a cute saying, or have your officiant make a quick announcement at the beginning of the ceremony. Let them know you would like them to all be fully present for this important moment, not experiencing it through their phone screen or lens of a camera.

Want a FREE “unplugged ceremony” print out for your wedding day? Click HERE