5 Reasons to ban cell phones from weddings [Unplugged]

No Cell Phone

It used to be one or two aggressive "guest" photographers that the hired/paid photographer(s) had to worry about interfering with the wedding day. The photographer typically would quickly identify the person(s) and kindly request that the person(s) try not to interfere during key moments of the ceremony and family group portraits. Recently, we noticed that the number of "guest" photographers has grown in succession with each passing wedding. Now I know some of you are wondering why the commissioned photographer should care if guests take pictures. Well, here are 5 reasons:

1. It adds unnecessary stress to the Bride and Groom. Taking a groupie with a few friends is fine, but when you have 250 guests and roughly 30-50 percent (75-125 guests for the mathematically challenged) want to take a picture, it causes the Bridge and Groom's carefully planned wedding itinerary to be thrown off.

2. You don't get a chance to enjoy the wedding as a guest since you are acting as a photojournalist. Your focus is trying to get that perfect shot, posting to Instagram with the right hastag#, or posting moment by moment statuses on Facebook. You aren't soaking in the ambiance the couple created for you when they planned the event.

Unplugged Sign

3. You negatively interfere with other guest experiences. If you disagree, then obviously you never been to a concert when the person in one of the rows closer to the stage stands up to capture video with their cell phone held high, effectively blocking the view of everyone behind them. This causes a chain reaction that has the person behind them stand up and the next person stand up and before you know it everyone has to stand up and there is a sea of cell phones in the air. this may be great for the ones that don't want to watch the show live and catch it later on their cell phone, but for those who do want to enjoy the experience, it has been ruined since they have an obstructed view of the show. This is especially true to those that are height challenged :-).

4. The Bride/Groom isn't shown in the best possible light, literally. Many guest and family members post images on social media that are unflattering, underexposed, and blurry. i hear complaints all the time from Bride & Grooms. Most know the intention of the person was good, but that doesn't change the face that they do the "obligatory" like and cringe silently about the image with them showing their eyes half-closed looking like they had one too many drinks during the wedding.

5. It interferes with the photographer you paid good money (hopefully :-)) to capture all the splendid glory of your special day. When you as the Bride are gracefully coming down the aisle, it may be ego boosting to see cell phones extended into the aisle, but what about your photographer? Those ego boosting cell phones are blocking the view the photographer has of the Bride coming down the aisle, but most importantly, they are blocking you and your future husband's view of each other. All of you hyper-aggressive iPhone/Android phonetograpy power users who want to be the first to upload pics to social media with whatever hashtag you can imagine probably didn't even think you were interfering with the paid photographer, but if your have your arm/cell phone extended into the aisle, you are interfering! Do you really need to be 3 feet in front of the couple?

One photographer sign