I’m sure that you’ve probably heard all the horrible stories of wedding guests getting in the way of professional photographers at weddings. And I’m sure that you’ve probably been given the advice to have an unplugged wedding day to prevent that situation from happening, but I totally recommend that you encourage your guests to take as many photos as possible and then asking that they send them to you. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
We loved our professional photographers, they were amazing and Chris and I would spend the money on their services a hundred times over again, but there’s something about our guests’ photos that we loved too. Our guests caught moments which were raw and beautiful. Moments that happened when our photographers were catching other things. We have photographs of our guests having a blast, photos of their favourite decor items, photos of them enjoying all the little things we set up at our venue.
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The other thing that you’ll love is that these photos will hold you over while your professional photographs are being edited. As a former photographer, I know firsthand how long it can take to edit wedding photos. So your guests’ photographs mean you’ll be able to enjoy your day almost right away. You’ll also be surprised at how many of your guests’ photos will look amazing. I love some of the photos we received from our guests as much as the photos we received from our photographers. Our guests really wowed us.
Use an uploading photo service so your guests can share all their photos with you. We used Wed Pics. Our guests uploaded their photos as they took them, so we enjoyed seeing them as we sat at the airport waiting to head off on our honeymoon. When we arrived home, I downloaded all the photos to my computer with one simple click and decided to make a coffee table album.
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I uploaded the photos we loved to what use to be MyPublisher but was bought by Shutterfly and created our own customized album. Its become a piece of our wedding that our daughter enjoys flipping through time and time again. And no, they aren’t paying me to say that nor did I get my album for free. I purchased this album with my hard earned cash and it has been worth every single penny. I’m even a little ashamed to say, okay don’t judge me, but I haven’t even made an album with our professional photos yet, and it’s been 4 years…But that just goes to show you how much we’ve loved our guests’ photographs.
I know what you’ve probably heard, stop your guests from taking photos because you’ll end up with Aunt Mary’s head and iPad in your first kiss photo. We didn’t have that experience. Our guests were respectful of the photographer’s space and we never heard a complaint from our photographers. If you’re really concerned about that just include a little note in your ceremony program asking your guests to be mindful of your photographers.
You could even create table cards like we did to encourage your guests to capture even more moments.
So instead of telling your guests to leave their cameras at home, encourage them to get photographs of moments they love and then share them with you. Then I highly encourage you to create an album and flip through it, keep it out on the coffee table, show it to your houseguests, your kids, your dog, heck go make yourself a couple of teas and flip through it with your spouse.
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