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Wedding Etiquette Forum
spudshirley
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Asking guests to NOT take photos during ceremony?
Recently my photographer for our wedding next December posted a picture of a guest actually ruining a great shot she had taken of the bride and groom walking down the aisle because they used a flash, which ended up right between the couple. After she posted that, it got me thinking about a friend of mine who said no flashes about a year ago, to which I remember thinking "wow, control freak" LOL!
After seeing that picture, however, I completely get it! We are paying a lot of money for our photographer to get the perfect shot, we aren't paying the guests! Is it appropriate to put in the ceremony programs "No flash photography, please" or something along the lines of how we understand the excitement of getting that perfect shot for yourself, but please be understanding that we have hired a professional photographer to get that perfect shot for us (obviously not those exact words). I know people have posted something in a frame, but I'd be afraid that will get over looked, and if the priest announces it too early, I'd be afraid people would miss the announcement.
Let me know what you think!
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Re: Asking guests to NOT take photos during ceremony?
1 - Just because you say "no flash photography" doesn't mean people aren't still going to try to take pictures -- and thus ruin your photographer's shot.
2 - Presumably your photographer is taking more than one shot, right? So, if someone jumps in front of her for a hot second, don't you think she can get another shot the second later? I know my photographer was constantly shooting.
I know people took photos of us at the ceremony and my photographer still had HUNDREDS of fabulous photos.
The only reason I could see having a sign or announcement is if your ceremony site requires it. Otherwise, this is just not something to care about.
www.detroitwedding.weebly.com
sure you want some great shots and memories of your day, but you have to accept that out of the 1000 shots you may get that day, probably only 600 will be really good ones - and that's still ALOT of pics.
i know of a woman who got married about 40 years ago (she's still married!). Her photographers studio was destroyed i think by fire after their wedding - she never received a single shot of her day, although he did take some shots of them for free, in their attire after the fact. but she was grateful for the shots the others took and she ultimately got over it.
most people dont look at their album all that often anyway, but rather frame one or two of their favorites to display. im certainly that even if several photos get "ruined" by others, you will still get some great pics.
[QUOTE]My minister does this at church: "First, let us begin by having the traditional turning off of the cell phones. (You can add cameras)." <strong>He holds up the phone and sings, "aaaaaaamen......</strong>" Everybody turns off their electronic equipment and laughs.
Posted by RetreadBride[/QUOTE]
Awesome
And truly, we received 1800+ photos from our photog. Maybe 20 ended up printed and in frames in someone's house. Even our album which has a couple hundred photos (which is a LOT) we still are only using a percentage of what he captured.
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Asking guests to NOT take photos during ceremony? : Awesome
Posted by sydaries[/QUOTE]
I like that!
However, if you kabosh photos entirely, you are going to regret it. It will take months for your photographer to complete their photos and get them to you, and for me it was only my family's photos that made the wait a sane one.
Also, your photographer isn't super-human, and will miss shots and moments. If people are taking pictures, you'll have every happy/funny/worthwhile moment recorded forever. For example, my uncle was taking a lot of photos of the guests while my photographer was focusing on my groom and I (rightly so). There were so many happy and funny things that happened away from us that we would have missed out on entirely if we had nixed photos by guests.
When we were doing family photos in the church other peope were tryng to do photos as well so I kept telling everyone up at the alter to look at the ACTUAL photograher.
I will say this, if you don't do a "no cameras", at least remind your WEDDING PARTY. My partner's sister took photos while standing at the altar. 90% of the pictures with her in it were with her holding up her camera or looking down at the screen. I was furious. After the wedding, I started looking around and found that this is not an uncommon problem. There were at least a handful of brides on my month board that had the same issue.
Websites/blogs where our wedding has been featured:
http://www.dapperq.com/2013/11/a-very-dapper-wedding/
http://www.onabicyclebuiltfortwo.com/2013/10/wedding-christina-g.html
http://4realequalityweddings.com/2014/05/16/g-christina/
[QUOTE]I sometimes wish I had told my guests "no pictures during the ceremony" but, I do love some of the pictures that guests took. So, it's a crapshoot. Most of the pictures that we got back from the back of the ceremony area though, had dozens of guests with their cameras in the air, and it looked pretty ridiculous. I will say this, if you don't do a "no cameras", at least remind your WEDDING PARTY. My partner's sister took photos while standing at the altar. 90% of the pictures with her in it were with her holding up her camera or looking down at the screen. I was furious. After the wedding, I started looking around and found that this is not an uncommon problem. There were at least a handful of brides on my month board that had the same issue.
Posted by cmgilpin[/QUOTE]
I remember a post about this! I was beyond shocked!!! THAT would have been a bridezilla moment for me :P.
May 2013 February Siggy: Invitations
[QUOTE]At my FSIL's wedding last month, my FI's aunt sat behind him and had her video camera resting on his shoulder the whole so that she could get an uninterrupted view. He was pissssed. Just thought I'd share. Even with the above story, I think it's rude to tell people not to use flash photography. I think it's great that friends and family are so excited for you to get married that they want to document it. I just don't see why it's a big deal.
Posted by melb2013[/QUOTE]
here's a picture of why it was a big deal to me:
Yep... that's us, getting ready to have our "kiss", with my partner's sister standing next to us, and looking at her camera. Almost every ceremony picture looks like this.
<a href="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/images/store/6/2/469365a3-df80-46c5-82b0-3ede34ff8b13.large.jpg" title="Click to view a larger photo" class="PhotoLink"><img src="http://cdn.cl9.vanillaforums.com/downloaded/ver1.0/content/images/store/6/2/469365a3-df80-46c5-82b0-3ede34ff8b13.medium.jpg" alt="" /></a>
Websites/blogs where our wedding has been featured:
http://www.dapperq.com/2013/11/a-very-dapper-wedding/
http://www.onabicyclebuiltfortwo.com/2013/10/wedding-christina-g.html
http://4realequalityweddings.com/2014/05/16/g-christina/
[QUOTE]At my FSIL's wedding last month, my FI's aunt sat behind him and had her video camera resting on his shoulder the whole so that she could get an uninterrupted view. He was pissssed. Just thought I'd share. Even with the above story, I think it's rude to tell people not to use flash photography. I think it's great that friends and family are so excited for you to get married that they want to document it. I just don't see why it's a big deal.
Posted by melb2013[/QUOTE]
My photographer told our guests not to take pictures of us and i thought it was super rude of him, after i saw the pictures of us walking out of the church i understood why, all our guests are holding up their camera's or you can see a bunch of little lights in the background which kinda ruined the pretty natural lighting in the church.
I'll def. make a note of it for all future weddings i attend.
Prior to my entrance, Our pastor made an announcement to our guests saying no pictures are to be taken during the ceremony. I was taken aback by that and thought that was rude when I heard because there was no policy in the church regarding this and he did not ask me or H our thoughts on this.
Fortunately, my photographer asked me prior to the procession as she thought there was some kind of rule for no pics being taken in the church (so glad she asked or else we would not have any ceremony pics!!).
People still took pics regardless but after reading everyone's posts I can understand asking guests not to take photos during the ceremony.
If your venue is indoors and small, I can see asking for no flashes. Happens all the time at plays and concerts. But it IS a little controling to assume people are going to ruin your pictures. Our photographer gave us over 700 photos, taken over about 8 hours. 1 flash here and there really won't ruin what you're paying for.
40/112
[QUOTE]<strong>Recently my photographer for our wedding next December posted a picture of a guest actually ruining a great shot she had taken of the bride and groom walking down the aisle because they used a flash, which ended up right between the couple</strong>. After she posted that, it got me thinking about a friend of mine who said no flashes about a year ago, to which I remember thinking "wow, control freak" LOL! After seeing that picture, however, I completely get it! We are paying a lot of money for our photographer to get the perfect shot, we aren't paying the guests! Is it appropriate to put in the ceremony programs "No flash photography, please" or something along the lines of how we understand the excitement of getting that perfect shot for yourself, but please be understanding that we have hired a professional photographer to get that perfect shot for us (obviously not those exact words). I know people have posted something in a frame, but I'd be afraid that will get over looked, and if the priest announces it too early, I'd be afraid people would miss the announcement. Let me know what you think!
Posted by spudshirley[/QUOTE]
A good photographer should know how to overcome these things. I'm not saying your photographer isn't good but you can't plan for everything to go perfectly and they need to be able to deal with any situation. Plus, there is always photoshop. Don;t like something, just remove it via photoshop, lol.
And I totally understand this. I've been at too many weddings where the photographer cannot do his job because everyone is taking photos at the same time and being disruptive. I'm mulling over the "no flash photography" and "stay in the moment" comments. It's a small service, so I may just spread the info around to the guests ahead of time. I'm definitely going to appoint one person from each sode of the family to "police" the family photos and keep others from taking photos so I don't have to.