Do you want to know, in my opinion, what the best way to ensure my team and I capture the best images of your day??? It's by having an Unplugged Wedding and posting a sign like one of these below:
You might ask, how can this possibly be the best thing I can do to end up with great pictures? Well, let me tell you. Let's face it- we've all been guests at weddings and wanted to capture a shot of the bride and groom with our phones, cameras, or my least favorite- HUGE iPads. (First of all, leave those things at home! They're giant, you worry about it getting stolen or spilled on all night and the picture quality... meh.) Anyhow! So we've all wanted those shots- believe me, I totally get it! However, it's when you stand over our shoulder so that you can get a shot we just set up and then we can't back up. Or step in front of us to "Just grab a quick shot"- don't believe me? I have shots of the backs of so many heads of people doing this exact thing. These people we can take care of- no problem. Let me let you in on a quick secret- Nowelle and her 2nd shooter, Miranda, are not the type of people that get pushed around easily. If you're looking for the super sweet one in our crew, it's Olivia. (Seriously, her last name is Sweet- I'm not kidding!) Nowelle and Miranda however, will pull the "extra photographers" to the side and make sure that they understand that they are interfering and that it needs to stop- now. If there are images they would like to capture, we are more than happy to make that happen for them.
However, one thing that we cannot help is the person, usually during the ceremony, that decides to use their pop up flash. Our cameras are specially designed to work in low light so as to avoid usually needing any additional flashes and as such, we are not set up to handle when someone starts "flashing" just as a couple kisses. Images like this cannot be fixed in Photoshop- no matter what: (Please note, this IS NOT MY PHOTO).
Please, you are spending a lot of money to have us there to capture your day. It takes 5 minutes to post a cute sign or add a note to your program just asking guests to unplug and enjoy being in the moment. Every one of our brides get all of the digital images and will happily forward them on to guests if asked. You're there to party, we're there to work.
Oh, and while researching for this blog, I found this link of images you might enjoy if you don't believe me that cameras and cell phones can and WILL ruin your images, enjoy: 23 Wedding Images Ruined.