50 THE QUEENS COURIER • BRIDAL • SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
bridal
OFF THE GRID
Getting guests off social media during your wedding
BY JULIA PRICE
With so much of the world now incorporating
social media into social engagements,
you may want a break from the
real-time posting on your wedding day.
In fact, many wedding photographers
have complained that they now have diffi
culty in getting the perfect shots of
couples getting hitched because smartphone
cameras tend to pop up all over
the place, either blocking their view or
adding less-than-romantic technology in
the foreground of the capture. We all
know you want that perfect picture for
the ‘Gram, but come on! People are trying
to remember this moment for the rest
of their lives!
Th ere are several ways to get your guests
to go off the grid while you tie the knot.
Th e fi rst one is to prepare them ahead of
time. Make sure you note on the wedding
invitations that this will be a Wi-Fi-free
event and that all social media posting is
either prohibited entirely or prohibited
until aft er the event. You can make it feel
a little less rule-ish and a lot more fun by
using language that is playful yet direct.
For example, you can say: “Th e theme
of this wedding is throwback! No, don’t
worry; that doesn’t mean the bridesmaids
will be wearing huge neon green dresses
with puff ed sleeves. But it does mean
that we will request you to leave your cellphones
in your car or in a cute little box at
the entrance of the ceremony.”
If you don’t want to actually request
that guests leave their phones in a box or
bin at the front, then you can give them
personal cellphone holders with their
names on them -- something satin or
silky or whatever goes with your theme.
Once someone drops his phone into the
pouch (which will have his name on it),
you can have a greeter collect it and place
it at his reception table. If you’d like to
remove yourself from any responsibility
of holding the phones at all, have multiple
greeters who will welcome the guests
and then ask them to put their phones
on airplane mode. Should a guest have
an emergency reason to keep her phone
on her person, ask her to keep her phone
on vibrate and respect the wishes of the
bride and groom by refraining from taking
photos and posting anything to social
networking sites.
Another way to limit guests’ access
to their phones is to go off the grid.
You can search for locations where there
is not any service or barely any at all.
Th ough this may not free you from those
annoying shots of phones taking photos
while your photographer is taking photos,
you’ll have a lot less to worry about
when it comes to having your guests wait
to post their photos. You may want to
warn guests that there will be spotty service.
Th at way, they can handle any personal
or professional stuff that needs to be
put in order before your day of love. And
of course, this opens the door to have a lot
of fun with creating the theme and vibe
that really celebrates the beauty in detaching
from the outside world.
Overall, you have to ask yourself what is
more important. Would you rather have
guests be totally present with you and
your loved ones as you exchange vows
to your sweetie, or do you want to have a
special hashtag where you can search and
fi nd a bunch of photos that your guests
took -- photos that the photographer
possibly didn’t capture. Because though
you’ll gain quality over quantity by leaving
the pictures up to the professionals,
sometimes the people who know you best
are looking for special moments that can
only be seen by someone who truly knows
you. If going off the grid is what you’re
looking for, perhaps you can gift guests
with disposable cameras so they can still
add their very special memories to your
very special day.
For a list of locations that are remote
and far from the grid, you can fi nd a
number of options simply by searching
“off -the-grid locations” in your search
bar. You can then call and double-check
that you’ll be as far away from Wi-Fi as
possible, just to ensure that you’ll have all
the phone-free fun that you’re looking for
on your day.
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