Advantages and disadvantages of an unplugged wedding ceremony

What actually is an unplugged wedding ceremony?

A lot of people don’t fully understand what an unplugged wedding ceremony is. When a couple choose to have an unplugged wedding ceremony, they are basically just asking their wedding guests to not use their phones, iPad’s cameras etc. during the ceremony.

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Why have unplugged wedding ceremonies become so popular?

Put yourself in the position of a couple planning their wedding day. Imagine walking down the aisle in front of all of your family and friends and being unable to see the joy and happiness in their faces or even be able to look them in the eyes because all you can see is a sea of mobile phones.

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 What are the advantages of an unplugged wedding ceremony?

  • The wedding guests are present in the moment rather than watching your wedding from behind an electronic screen.

  • Your wedding guests are part of your wedding rather than just documenting it to post on social media later. This means they can share in all the love with you, attending your wedding becomes an experience, rather than being a way to get some likes because they were the first person to upload a photo or video to Instagram or Facebook.

  • The couple get to see their guest’s reaction to all the important moments during the ceremony, walking down the aisle, exchanging your vows, the kiss, the signing of the registrar etc.

  • It is much less likely that someone’s phone will ring during the ceremony.

  • No unflattering photos! Couples pay a lot of money on booking a wedding photographer and videographer for their wedding because they love their style and know that they will provide them with beautiful content from their wedding. The simple truth is that photos and videos taken by guests at wedding are often very poor quality and can often be very unflattering. You just know that awful photo your cousin took is going straight on the gram and they are going to tag everyone you know in it.

  • Your professional wedding photographs and video won’t be compromised. We have photographed a lot of weddings. it would probably shock most people how many photographs we delete as unusable from the wedding ceremony because of interference from guests. We could give countless examples of great photos that have been ruined because a wedding guest has stepped in front of us at the wrong moment and in some cases even pushed us out of the way to get their shot. A few years ago, while photographing a wedding, a brides aunty pushed us out of the aisle so that she could get her photograph of the couple coming back down the aisle. She pushed that hard I fell into the pews on top of other guests, luckily nobody was hurt. My £8,000 camera and lens that I was using went skidding across the church floor. Luckily the equipment wasn’t badly damaged and the photographs we had taken using that equipment didn’t become corrupted but it could so easily have gone the other way. We could have been a camera and lens down for the rest of that wedding, all of the photos we had taken up to that point using that camera could have been lost. Some guests also bring cameras and use flash during the ceremony. We never use flash during the ceremony as it is very distracting for the couple. The other issue with guests using cameras with flash, is that when they are taking photographs their flash effects the exposure of our cameras and can also result in images we have taken not being usable.

 

What are the disadvantages of an unplugged ceremony?

There isn’t many, other than maybe that your uncle Bob doesn’t get to post the photos and videos he has taken to Facebook.

Another disadvantage can be guests refusing to honour the couples wishes for an unplugged wedding. This surprisingly happens more often than you might think. Even just recently we found one of our brides after the ceremony in tears because she was so upset that some members of her and the groom’s family, even though they were well aware of her and the groom’s desire for an unplugged ceremony had spent the whole ceremony taking photographs and videos on their phones.

 

Why do some guests refuse to honour the couples wishes to have an unplugged wedding ceremony?

We honestly are not sure why this can sometimes happen. We can only guess that some wedding guests feel that the couples request does not apply to them, maybe because they have a close relationship with the bride and groom. They maybe think, “well they can’t mean me”. We have also heard some “strange” excuses. For example, we once overheard a wedding guest telling others, “I just ignored that, I took loads of photos, just in case the wedding photographers’ camera broke.” This would never happen! If you have booked us to photograph your wedding, we bring along 6 camera’s and 14 lenses to every single wedding, and we have backups for absolutely everything in case equipment fails.

 

How can you let everyone know that you are having an unplugged wedding ceremony?

There are quite a few ways to get the message out to your wedding guests. Many couples display signs on the entrance to the ceremony. Many also choose to put their request on the wedding invites and the order of service. Another great way is to have your celebrant ask everyone to put away their devices and respect your wishes before you walk down the aisle. You can also get your groomsmen to help, when they are showing people were to sit, they can gently remind your guests to keep their devices out of sight. You could also put a reminder on social media the day before the wedding.

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A wedding photographers point of view on unplugged wedding ceremonies

We are there to document your wedding day and it’s our job to work towards getting the best possible wedding photographs on the day whatever the situation. We would be lying if we said that an unplugged wedding doesn’t help us to do our job better, because it does. Every wedding photographer and videographer would say the same thing. However, if you are not having an unplugged wedding, we will of course do everything we can to work around those distractions and do the best job possible.

The decision on if you should or shouldn’t have an unplugged wedding has to be the couples, as should everything else that falls under the banner of planning your wedding. As a wedding vendor it up to us to support you with everything that is needed to make your wedding day perfect, not to interfere with your plans.

Tommy + Laurene