Imagine that you get all dressed up to go to a wedding, and then once you arrive, someone takes your phone away. Some wedding guests might be offended or annoyed. But "unplugged weddings" are a thing in 2019, and there's a good reason for that.
In a Facebook post that has gone viral, Hannah Mbalenhle Stanley, a wedding photographer in Texas, explained how the use of phones at weddings has gotten out of hand.
Hannah says that guests should leave the wedding photography to the professionals. Not only are phones distracting, but they also make it harder for actual photographers to do their job.
To prove her point, Hannah shared a photo of a beautiful shot that she tried to take. It was ruined by a girl with an iPhone.
"Guests, please stop viewing weddings you attend through a screen but instead turn OFF your phone, and enjoy the ceremony," Hannah wrote.
As a wedding photographer, Hannah is well-aware of how meaningful photography can be. It allows you to capture special moments forever so that memory is never lost.
These days, though, it's SO easy to take a photo that it doesn't mean quite as much anymore. We capture everything and anything on our cellphones, and most of the photos stay in an endless backlog in our phones.
Also, when you're constantly worried about getting a good photo, it's hard to enjoy the moment. Snapping a great photo is a whole job that people get paid to do — it's not that easy, and it requires focus, which takes away from the actual moment itself.
So when it comes to truly big moments, it's best to leave the photography to the professionals, Hannah says.
One particular incident made this so clear to Hannah that she had to share it on social media.
Hannah tried to capture a very important moment at one client's wedding — the bride and her dad walking down the aisle. But her view of the scene was obscured by a woman with her iPhone, sticking her hand out to get her own shot of the moment.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime shot. Hannah posted a photo to show her attempt and how it was ruined by iPhone Lady.
"To the girl with the iPhone…" she wrote alongside the photo. "Not only did you ruin my shot, but you took this moment away from the groom, father of the bride, and the bride."
She went on to explain how silly it was that this person felt the need to get this photo in the first place.
"What exactly do you plan on doing with that photo? Honestly. Are you going to print it out? Save it? Look at it everyday? No. You're not," she wrote.
"But my bride would have printed this photo, looked at it often and reminisced over this moment as her dad walked her down the aisle on her wedding day," she continued. "But instead, you wanted to take a photo with your phone, blocking my view, and taking a photo that you will not use."
Hannah went on to plead with wedding guests to just put their darn phones down and enjoy the wedding, because it's (gasp) not their job to document every moment of the ceremony!
"Guests, please stop viewing weddings you attend through a screen but instead turn OFF your phone, and enjoy the ceremony," she wrote.
"You are important to the bride and groom, you would not be attending the wedding otherwise," she said. "So please, let me do my job, and you just sit back, relax and enjoy this once in a lifetime moment."
She signed the screed "Sincerely, Wedding photographers."
But this wisdom doesn't just apply to weddings. At pretty much any event, everyone has their phone out, and everyone is busy taking the same photos for their own collections. Because memories.
If there won't be any official photographs of an important event, it may make sense to whip your phone camera out to document it yourself. But even then, you don't need to have the camera out constantly. It's not quite the same to view things "through a screen," as Hannah put it.
Hannah's post went viral, getting over 138,000 likes and 177,000 shares. Clearly, this is a message many people needed to hear.
