It may sound melodramatic but in the age of mobile phones and digital cameras it is a more and more common occurrence. More and more we encounter guests ruining wedding photos by distracting the subjects, ruining intimate moments, or constantly in the background of the photographer’s lens just so they can get their shot! It has been on the rise for a few years now but it seems to have peaked in a war between guests with cameras and phones and the professional you hired.
We had one experience while shooting a wedding where we had two guests with camera in tow standing up at the altar, they were pushing us out of the way, blocking our view, or ruining the lighting with their flashes, just to get their own shots!
Snap happy guests will often stand in the aisle blocking our view of shooting down the aisle for that perfect shot. They also spoil photos by having their heads and bodies in most of the ceremony shots. We work hard to be unobtrusive, so the guests can see what is happening; unfortunately the courtesy doesn’t always go both ways. We were shooting a wonderful wedding last year and I was so dismayed to see so many photos after the ceremony had “Uncle Bob” with his big tablet covering his face taking photos in dozens, of what would have been a beautiful shot. The work that has to go into saving the photo and cropping him out takes a long time, and sometimes its not possible or it ruins the photo altogether.
There usually isn’t a problem when guests take pictures but when they get in the way of the professionals you hired it becomes a conflict. You hire a professional photographer because they have experience photographing weddings, this is their job. Even a guest with a high end camera, in most cases will still fail to get the same shot as your professional wedding photographer. Knowing how to finesse the wedding day, how to frame, when to shoot, the correct camera settings, how to be invisible, and the hours of post production that go in to making your wedding images amazing. Even with a $5000 camera guests with no experience photographing weddings are just taking snapshots, a professional photographer will give you beautiful images that will last a lifetime.
A photographer works hard to set up all those group shots you wanted, when we are surrounded by happy snappers, often it causes distractions, and we
end up with groups of people all looking at different cameras. We want everyone looking into our lens. This also lengthens the process which can get groups impatient.Your guests might you give you a bunch of images a day after the wedding, then after you look over them you might feel like there we not to many good ones and then you might second guess your professional photographer.
In addition, we now have to contend with 50-60 cell phones, even iPads being whipped out while you walk down the aisle and they are all in the shot. People lean in or even step in to the aisle to get a “better shot” for themselves and often step right in front of our line of sight to you walking down the aisle. Think about this for a second. Do you want to see a bunch of cell phones in front of the faces of your friends in the background of your wedding pictures or just the faces of your friends taking in the special moments? The shutter bugs here destroyed a beautiful moment.
So what can you do to avoid the wedding guest paparazzi from invading your wedding? Well, there is no easy answer. But a growing trend is the "Unplugged Wedding"
This gets your guests more in the moment, rather than viewing your wedding through their phone. When you send out email updates or if you have your own wedding site, make an announcement stating that you hired a professional wedding photographer and so they can enjoy the proceedings your wedding will be unplugged. So put away the phones and ipads. Its a good idea if you have a celebrant for them to mention to your guests before you arrive to please not take photos and to just enjoy the moment and let the professionals do their job. Lastly, if you see one of your guests or family members in the way on wedding day, kindly ask them to refrain from being too obtrusive. They might hear you louder than they do us. Sometimes we say something to them directly and sometimes we just try to work around them but your pictures will suffer for it if they continue to get in the way. You might even add a card to your invitations addressing the subject of photography. In to-days world of social media sharing photos has never been easier. Ask your guests to be patient and you will share the photos as soon as they are ready after post production, and all the images are perfect.
So you can see the other side of the aisle from a professional photographers perspective, here are the top three times during the wedding day we see guests ruining wedding photographs or moments.
1. The Ceremony: guests will step in the aisle or stick cell phones out into the aisle to photograph you during your trip up the aisle and
back down after your married. Many times stepping right in front of us. The result is a photograph of a bunch of cell phones hiding the reaction of your guests’ faces or even worse your guests in the foreground blocking your walk down the aisle for our lens. Also during the ceremony guests taking their own pictures and ending up in the background of your emotional moments.
2. Guests phone and camera flashes can white out our shots,causing us to miss that special moment. This results in all the detail being whited out and there is nothing in post production we can do to bring this back.
3. While your photographer is taking formal or group pictures: Guests stand around shooting snapshots while the photographer shooting. This is a
distraction not only for the photographer but when you get your pictures back chances are you will see people in your photographs not looking into the photographers lens but someone else’s. You want every ones full attention on the person you are paying, or your pictures will have people looking in another direction.
Today it is not uncommon to see signs at the ceremony and reception venues that state this is an unplugged wedding, this can be a great subtle way to get your point across.
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