Wedding Ceremonies.

Tips for setting a tone that
isn’t awkward or boring.

I hear lots of people talking about an unplugged ceremony, what is this?

The short answer is it’s asking your guests not to take any photos during the ceremony.
I’m not a photographer like some, that strictly enforces this on couples and I’m certainly not going to be a photographer that publicly posts all the specific ceremony photos that have been impacted on negatively (nice way of saying RUINED) by guests cameras & devices. The shaming culture is not one that I want to be a part of. If you don’t mind your family & friends taking photos, I’ll never be one to stop them or ask them to move. If I could offer a few things to consider that might give valuable perspective then let me just say that the ceremonies I photograph are quite often non-religious ceremonies at wineries or in gardens and have usually concluded in 20-30 minutes. An unplugged ceremony isn’t for your photographer, its really your way to express to your very closest friends and family that “this 30 minutes is extremely important to us, it’s probably one of the most important things we’ll ever do in our lives. So please please please give us your undivided attention to enjoy and be involved in this special time with us. We’re standing in front of you and saying ‘this is who we are’ We don’t want you distracted by your device”

CELEBRANTS

How many weddings have you been to where you’re rolling your eyes and cringing and tensing up all because of a celebrant or minister sharing their long winded love analogies, “funny” puns and personally perceived views on passages from the Corinthians?
In my first year of shooting weddings, SO MANY. #triggered

PLEASE do not underestimate how critical a superb celebrant is to your wedding.  The celebrant is the one who sets the vibe and the atmosphere for the rest of your wedding day & night! They’re the one who decides if your ceremony is boring or awkward. Like photographers, there are a multitude of celebrants out there and in my experience, it’s been an eye opening experience seeing that very few are capable of delivering a engaging, heartfelt and genuinely funny ceremony experience that’s not about them and totally about you. I believe your ceremony is actually the most important part a wedding day. It sets the tone of the whole day. Thinking a cheap celebrant or getting some friend or family member who is a celebrant might be a good way to save some money might not be the best idea.

Just imagine I’ve thrown a figurative bucket of ice water over you to snap you out of that mindset! You’ll thank me after your wedding. I promise. I have seen getting the cheap celebrant go wrong so many times. Celebrant on their phone in your first kiss photo, getting your name wrong, jokes that only they find funny, ruining your photos or video by standing in the wrong spot, forgetting a critical audio cable, not being able to direct your guests, the list goes on. You have to be good at so many things to pull off an amazing ceremony that’s memorable for the right reasons. Things that are not taught, but that are learned from the experience of doing hundreds of ceremonies. If you stick with a celebrant from this list, you can’t go wrong, you’ll be in safe hands and your guests will be raving about it.

If you want some high quality epic Celebrants to pick from for your day, check out this page here. Zero Awkward Jokes. Nothing Weird.

TRADITIONS

Have you ever thought about the idea of tradition. When you do maybe you’ll come to a similar conclusion to mine. Traditions at some point in time were a new idea that people decided to do and then other people chose to repeat that same thing or tweak it slightly in a repetitive way over time. So at the end of the day traditions were new ideas. There can be a lot of traditions that people partake in during a wedding at a ceremony. Sometimes they mean absolutely nothing to the couple but it’s something they think they have to do. Question these traditions. It’s something I encourage all my couples to do, not to be different for the sake of being different but to make sure that the wedding that they put together is a strong reflection of themselves and a celebration around who they are.