In a time when photo sharing on social media and wedding hashtags are popular, unplugged weddings are a growing trend welcomed by photographers like us. What is an unplugged wedding exactly? Well it’s when the bride and groom request that their guests leave their phones and cameras (or any electronic device really) at home or turn them off and “unplug” so that they can be more present during the ceremony and actually enjoy the moments and celebration instead of being distracted by Instagram and photo taking. Mothers of the bride or groom are snapping shots during the ceremony when they could be paying enjoying the experience of the wedding. Often, guests think they are helping or doing you a favor by taking additional shots but in actuality wedding party members or guests who photograph wedding events can often block important shots for us photographers. So unplugged weddings help us a lot because we don’t have to worry about guests peeking out into aisles blocking the kiss or jumping in front of us during an exit.

This ceremony exit photo would have been a whole lot better if the guest on the right hadn’t jumped up into our shot becoming the focus. Really if all of the people with cameras hand’t started snapping. This was a particularly hard ceremony with so many people shooting in front of us. While we didn’t miss anything important, we probably would have been able to deliver more images to our awesome couple if we didn’t have to delete so many with guests leaning in front of us and blocking our view. We obviously can’t control this situation- the best we can do is ask guests with cameras nicely before the ceremony starts to stay out of the aisle and in their seats (which we did on this day). So the best thing couples can do is make guests aware ahead of time that you would prefer they not interfere with the photographers you hired and trust very much to get all the moments of the day. A sign about the wedding being unplugged (like the photo above from Rebbecca & Chase’s ceremony) is a super sweet and classy way to let people know this.

I feel like this moment below of Rebbecca & Chase’s unplugged wedding ceremony is so much better because all the guests are present and looking at the bride and groom and enjoying the moment. I hope this was helpful! We come across this issue a lot, especially recently, and get asked frequently how we deal with guests shooting and getting in our way. While we are always super polite with guests and work around them as much as possible, we also can’t ask guests to move out of our way in the middle of a ceremony. So it is always better for us, and any photographer, when we can focus on what’s happening with the couple and not worry about guests blocking our view as well.

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