Love this! Tell your guests to leave their cameras at home …
Offbeat Bride had a great article posted back on June 13 – The unplugged wedding: couples tell guests to put down their devices.
Asking guests not to take photos during the ceremony is something I definitely encourage my couples to do. Simply have your officiant announce, pre-ceremony, that you have requested that no guest photos be taken during the ceremony. Most guests will respect your wishes.
I often am forced to ask guests to return to their seats or move out of the aisle, as they’re not only ruining my paid, professional shots, but they’re ruining the wedding day experience for the bride and groom. This is becoming more and more common – I’m not sure if it’s me becoming less tolerant of rudeness, or if people are just becoming more rude. I’m pretty sure some people are just plain rude.
Imagine if the paid, professional wedding photographer is set up and ready for the bride and her father to walk down the aisle. The father is choking back tears, and the bride is absolutely beaming with joy and anticipation. It’s a small church with a very short aisle. There is only one spot the photographer can be located in. The photographer has maybe 0.5 seconds to capture the moment when the father looks proudly at his daughter while she dazzles her new husband … and a rude wedding guest leans juuuuuust far enough out into the aisle for his or her head to be permanently captured, blocking the father’s torso. There was one chance to record that memory for the couple, and the guest just ruined it.
Imagine if the photographer is set up for the couple’s first kiss as man and wife – in the perfect spot, anticipating the moment, about to nail the moment … and a rude wedding guest with a point-and-shoot hops out of their seat just as the couple leans in, effectively blocking the professional photographer. Guest, you have just ruined one of the classic, most important shots of the entire wedding – and worse, your blurry, grainy, poorly composed, low-quality shot will in no-freakin-way replace the one you just ruined.
Stuff like this happens ALL THE TIME. As a guest, do you want to be present and enjoy the ceremony, or do you want to go down in history as the rude individual who ruined that moment? Your choice. Because when the bride calls me, sad because she didn’t get that one shot she really wanted, believe me when I say I’m going to pull out the shot of the back of your head, show it to her, and tell her to take it up with you.
See also: Dear wedding guest …
Typical of any wedding these days, everyone feels the need to take a photo ... even if it's with a cell phone, inside a dark church, and the picture isn't going to come out anyway.
From 2008, one of the rudest guests-with-a-camera I remember was the bride's own mother.
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