What is an unplugged wedding? An unplugged wedding is where you ask your guests to turn off their phones, cameras, tablets, and other mobile devices during your ceremony. As a Quad Cities wedding photographer, I always advise my brides of doing this. It only takes a little, delicately framed piece of paper that says you want your ceremony to be unplugged to stop all your guests interfere with your hired photographers in a number of different ways and to simply just enjoy the ceremony and be present in the moment with you.
As a professional wedding photographer, it is my job to ensure my couples are more than satisfied with their photos from their wedding day. I spend a countless number of hours studying and learning and growing and ensuring my equipment is the absolute best equipment on the market to provide my clients absolutely the most stunning images I'm able to. So as much as I can completely understand guests wanting to have their shots of the happy couple or the bride looking amazing, please just wait until the reception. Pull the bride and groom off to the side and request your photos. Please don't do it during the ceremony. It's simply impolite and really taking away from the magic that surrounds the couple in that very moment.
I highly recommend having your wedding unplugged, but I respect your wishes if you choose not to. If you have any questions concerning this or how to unplug your wedding, feel free to contact me and we can chat.
Here's an example of a cute little framed message for guests to review as they arrive. This couple had the great idea of putting their programs and bubbles right next to the sign. So as guests arrived, they picked up their keepsakes and read the sign asking for an unplugged wedding. It's delicate, polite, and gets the job done.
Here is an overview of a ceremony where there is no guest holding up an iPad or a cell phone. Everything looks clean and organized and everyone is simply enjoying the ceremony. This creates much nicer portraits for the bride and groom.
Here is an example of a bride and groom right after they were announced husband and wife. As you can see, there's no one that is holding up an iPad or cell phone or camera to take pictures of this great moment. These lovely guests allowed us to capture this sweet moment for the bride and groom to treasure forever.