I’d like to think that I was maybe the first to start this “unplugged” wedding trend but I would have to be pretty naive to think that. When I went through the wedding planning phase of my life and got married, four years ago, we kindly asked our attendees if they’d just allow the photographer to capture the moments of our most precious day in hopes that they would put down their cameras (that also meant phones in many cases) and just simply but supremely be in the moment with us. Now being a photographer this was a natural thing for me to do—ask the people I am inviting to leave their cameras at home. For some reason it still felt odd requesting such a thing. Shouldn’t they be allowed to do whatever they want? Of course I want people to be free to bring a camera, enjoy themselves and have fun but as a photographer, I know what it’s like to dodge a gazillion other “photographers” and it’s not my favorite (and as a bride I learned MANY firsthand benefits-but that is a subject for another post).

Since making this request at my own wedding—I have now seen what I thought was just simply asking my friends and family to be present and in the moment—become it’s own thing, a trend if you will. It’s even been coined “The Unplugged Wedding.” Since I grew up in the era of MTV’s Unplugged, I rather like that title. I don’t think that’s showing my age too much, is it? Anyway, the point to all of this is that these days family and friends are so consumed with capturing that sweet precious moment of the bride and groom kissing, dancing, shoving cake in their mouths and so forth that they are truly missing being present in those moments. I know this all too well. I can certainly turn on the photographer in me and capture the tremendous moments that happen, but in order to do this, I have to abandon my own emotional experience in a way in order to better dial into the bride and groom’s emotional experience. Again, the emotion is certainly conveyed in my images, but not as a result of my own emotional experience-rather, more as a result of dialing into their emotional experience. As a family member or close personal friend, it’s important to be able to say to your kids/grandchildren/friends how you felt during an event or what the experience was like because you were there. It is so important that your guests have their own personal memories of those events. What is life without our fond memories of events and being able to recollect on them and share them with others over time? As a guest, allowing the hired photographer to retell the story with their photos gives you the opportunity to relax, fully engage in the moments, enjoy the day, spend time with friends and family that you haven’t seen in a while, connect and make new relationships, and retell it all by memory later. You also have the added bonus of professional images to go along with those stories instead of only having the images that you took with no memories or stories to go along with them. Aren’t stories being told around a dinner table so much more fun anyway?

I know some of you may be saying “well, we will never see the photographer’s photos”. These days this is far from the case. I know in my own business, I love sharing photos. It’s why I started using a company called PASS. It’s an online cloud service that allows me to upload wedding photos to a beautiful online gallery that can be shared over and over with friends and family. They can even order prints from it. It’s easy and I love it!! So know that if you see me at a wedding, I am doing my best to capture every precious moment and you’ll get to see the images too. If you don’t get to see them, message me and I’ll send you the link. Here’s an example of what that online gallery might look like: http://jeannemitchumphotography.pass.us/robynandmicah

{ Stay tuned for the part 2: The Bride and Grooms Perspective on the Unplugged Wedding. }

and by the way…this is all open for discussion. Feel free to leave nice comments. : )

Here are a couple of photos I took at recent weddings. I am not in any way shaming or criticizing the people in these photos (in fact I purposely blurred the last two so you can’t quite tell who it is in the photo), just simply using them as examples. It wouldn’t be a photo blog without photos. : ) 

 As always feel free to check out my website: www.jeannemitchu.com