When your photos come back from your wedding photographer, all your guest shots include your favorite people staring at their favorite devices. People are smiling, but they’re all staring at little screens.

Welcome to the era of the over-documented wedding, where, even if you’ve hired someone to take photos, every guest has a camera and an iPhone and is tweeting the whole event. They’re there with you, but are they really present?

Be nice, turn off your device

As a web nerd who spends the majority of my life plugged into my iMac, iPad, and iPhone, even I think it’s critical to take a few moments to be truly present. Smell the air, look around, feel the texture of the world around us. A wedding ceremony is exactly the kind of fleeting, important moment when it’s especially valuable to really be present, rather than relating to the world through a small LCD screen. When you discourage devices at your wedding, you encourage your guests to look up and drink in the world. Let’s call it “in-the-moment matrimony.”

While many churches have no camera policies, I’m hearing more and more from nontraditional secular couples that they’re considering an “unplugged wedding” — at the very least, asking guests to turn off their devices during the ceremony.

Now, let’s acknowledge that a fully plugged-in, hyper-documented wedding makes perfect sense for some couples. Micro-budget brides sometimes skip professional photography, opting to rely on guest photographs — so of course guest cameras make perfect sense in that context. If you’re a digerati who announced your engagement via Facebook, had an iPad-wielding officiant, read your vows off an iPhone, and live-streamed your ceremony, then there’s no reason you should unplug your wedding. I’m certainly not here to dictate that anyone needs to have less tech at their wedding.

If, however, you and your partner are looking for a few less beeps and a bit more face-to-face connection with your guests, an unplugged wedding could be a good fit for you.

Don’t experience our wedding through a viewfinder: the bride perspective

Philadelphia resident Kathleen Harbin, 27, is considering going unplugged for her June 2012 wedding in Antalya, Turkey. “My ceremony will be very short (perhaps 15 minutes)… it could fly by while someone tries to figure out whether their memory card is full. How can I connect with my guests when I can’t even see them through the cameras they’re holding up?”
How can I connect with my guests when I can’t even see them through the cameras they’re holding up?

Carrie Kilman, a 35-year-old planning her August 2011 wedding in Madison, WI, has personal experience with the distraction factor. “As a photographer myself, I know how the act of being behind the lens can distance me from the energy of the moment — I become an observer and interpreter, and no longer a true participant. We want our guests to experience our ceremony in a way you typically can’t do when you’re staring through a viewfinder or fiddling with your iPhone.”

She goes on, “Philosophically, I don’t like the way digital cameras and camera phones have encouraged the sense that we need to ‘capture’ everything in order for it feel complete. I’d rather people simply watched and clapped and smiled and cried — and really listened and remembered, not from the photos they downloaded onto their computers, but from their own memories.”

Dealing with Uncle Bob: the wedding professional perspective

Wedding officiants are starting to get more requests for unplugged ceremonies, as well. Celebrant Jessie Blum, of New Jersey’s Eclectic Unions said, “I’ve had a few couples who have requested that NO photos be taken at the ceremony. Often times, when the request comes from the officiant, guests will take note and respect the couple’s wishes. Guests get so bogged down in taking photos sometimes — it’s nice to be able to step back, and just enjoy the moment!”

Wedding industry insiders even have a name for the aggressive amateur photographer at weddings: Uncle Bob.

Perhaps the strongest proponents of unplugged weddings are professional wedding photographers, who sometimes experience significant challenges working around guests trying to capture the event for themselves. Seattle wedding photographer Jenny Jimenez observed, “Too many wedding crowd shots these days include distracted people checking cell phones and camera LCDs… especially during the processional and recessional.”

You don’t have to look very hard to find a million rants about how Uncle Bob has ruined professional wedding photos with the flash from his camera, photobombing gorgeous poses, kneeling in the aisle blocking the view of the vows, and even standing on pews.
Some wedding photographers will even show their couples photos of an Uncle Bob ruining a wedding photo, as a way to encourage their clients to ask guests to put down their cameras.

Is unplugging right for your wedding?

I want to clarify again: I’m certainly not saying that all weddings should be unplugged, or that guests are doing anything wrong when they have their cameras and phones out. If it doesn’t bother the couple, then it’s not a problem. As with all things Offbeat Bride, ultimately this wedding decision comes down to what feels right to each couple.

That said, I do think that in this era of 24-hour connectivity, where there’s an iPhone in every pocket, a Facebook status update in every encounter, and a digital hobbyist photographer in every family, it’s important to carefully consider the issue. Digital devices are ever-present in our daily lives; what role do you want these devices to play at your wedding?

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How about the amazing setup for the wedding!  The resort did an awesome job, and the weather cooperated perfectly (almost too perfectly – I was so RED by the end of my two days on the island).  Additionally, we were there the day before the wedding for their dinner cruise around Phi Phi.. so they got lots and lots of extra candids of them with their guests, yay!

Congratulations Louise & Adam, and thanks for letting us be a part of your big day(s)!

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Group excursion coverage is a great way to get lots of extra special pictures of you and your family and friends that you would never get with just standard wedding coverage.  If you have a boat trip or other special outing planned, you WILL want to take advantage of this offer!  950 USD is all it takes to reserve your date and get a free extra day of coverage thrown in.

If you haven’t decided on a group excursion yet – check out this shot below.  It’s from a Jabudays boat trip around Phi Phi island.  Talk about an amazing location to get some candid pictures!

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Congratulations Lana and Jesse – thanks for letting us be part of your day.

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Enjoy the pictures – I’m heading back to the cave to edit!

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Before you get too stressed out trying to learn the rules of wai’ing, you should know that almost no one is going to be offended if a foreigner wais improperly or not at all.  Keep a smile on your face at all times, and do your best, and no one will ever ask any more of you as a guest in Thailand.

Having said that, here is a basic introduction to the wai, from our friends at whywai.com:

Rules of Usage

The most common use for the Wai is in greeting someone. You clasp your hands together in front of you and lower your head while smiling and saying ‘Sawasdee’ for hello. Gentlemen can bow slightly at the waist while Ladies may make a small courtsey.

The Wai is also meant as a sign of respect and is often shown by a person of lower status wai-ing to someone of higher status first.

Rion’s note: Foreigners should not concern themselves with trying to figure out who is higher and lower status than them.  As I said before, think of it like a handshake: if it is someone who you would normally shake hands with, then a wai is probably appropriate (and as some Thais really dislike the physical contact required for handshaking, a wai is almost always more appropriate than offering your hand).

Positions of the Wai

The person of lower status would also bend lower, lower his head more and clasp his hands higher. You will usually guess the status of two people that meet by watching the way they waieach other. The lower the head/body, the higher the hands, the higher the status and respect offered. L x HB x HH = W = S Taking notes so far?

It is also protocol that if someone wais you, you don’t have to return the wai but it is very disrespectful to not acknowleadge it. A smile or a nod will usually suffice. Monks and Thai Royality will never return a wai but a King will wai a monk, such are the rules of status in Thailand.

Rion’s note: Put your palms together, fingers closed, elbows in, and bring your hands up so your thumbs touch just below your nose.  This is a common, average level of respect, wai.  The higher your thumbs are, the more respect you are showing with your wai.  So for example, if you go to a temple you might notice that when wai’ing a monk or a Buddha image, Thais will generally bring their hands up so the thumbs are on their forehead.

For a more informal wai, place your hands together at chest level, and bow your head so your chin comes down to your fingertips.  This is the type of wai you will get from service people as you check-in to your hotel, leave a restaurant, etc.

Whatever you do, don’t hold your hands two feet away from your body and bend awkwardly at the waste while extending your hands even further outward.  This gesture is completely “foreign” to Thais.

When to Wai

When will always depend on ‘who‘ as in who has the higher status or seniority. If your lower in status then you wai first. Most tourist and farang generally would not have to worry about wai-ing first out of general respect from Thai people for your status as a foreigner plus we aren’t expected to understand Thai ways.

However you do go a long way by wai-ing with the proper respect to monks, members of the Royal Family and elder persons. Be careful you don’t go in the wrong way by wai-ing to children, service people like cooks, clerks, taxi drivers or anyone obviously younger than yourself. People and friends of equal status may only wai each other when coming or going.

Rion’s note: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen foreigners getting out of a tuk-tuk and back away wai’ing the driver several times thanking him for overcharging them for the ride across town.  The wai is not a “thank you”, it is a much deeper sign of respect.  If you want to thank a service person of any type, you only need to say “Khob Khun Krub/Ka” (or Thank You!) and offer a smile.  Again, you wouldn’t offer a handshake to a waiter for bringing you a glass of water – and you wouldn’t wai them either!

Origins of Wai

The strongest cousin to the wai is the Indian Namaste which means welcome, relax and enjoy. Namaste, an Indian word is the highest form of greeting considered an honorable tribute from one being to another. The Chinese way of greeting, or ‘Koh Kung’, also uses the same handlike gesture. It’s pretty obvious that Thai culture not only shares this tradition but was influenced a great deal by it. I’ve always thought Thailand was a unique blend of East and West (Asia that is – although technically India is South Asia but the East/West bit sounds more intriging right?)

Plus the Buddha is often shown in a similar pose with his hands clasped together as a sign of peace. Whether the origin of the wai comes from India, or China or perhaps sprung completely on it’s own from the people that tamed Thailand eons ago the fact is it is Thailand. It’s the heart and warmth of the Thai people and it is with grace, sincerity and beauty that it is offered. Makes the handshake look kinda primitive afterwards doesn’t it?

So even if you can’t speak a lick of Thai to save your life if you know the rules, always smile and can master a good Wai you’ll go over like gangbusters.

So there you go!  Go ahead and practice in the mirror a few times before you come until it feels natural.  But most of all just remember, it’s the thought that counts, so don’t feel too much pressure to get it perfect!

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It has lots of city-specific information for 89 different cities in Thailand. Tell it where you are, and it shows you lists of hotels, shopping spots, restaurants, and tourist attractions. In this regard, it is pretty similar to a book such as the Lonely Planet books, only in an app.

Where this app is really great though is for finding up-to-date holiday and special event information. Let’s say you’re going to be in Thailand in April and want to find out what’s going on. Click on Events, then April, and you’ll see that April is the Songkran festival and a listing of all the different celebrations throughout Thailand along with their dates. Click on a specific festival name and you’ll get even more detailed information about it.

In addition to the Amazing Thailand app, the Tourist Authority of Thailand also has 19 other free apps out there for tourists.  One specific to Phuket, one for golfers, one for Chiang Mai… you get the idea.  If you’re coming to thailand definitely check them out!

http://mobile.tourismthailand.org/

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We are getting married in Koh Samui in November, and were wondering if you are available and what your prices are. We don’t need an album, if you could just burn the images to a DVD so we can take it with us when we go home that would be great. Thanks.

Listen guys, I am a human being.  I fully understand that everyone is trying to stay within their budget while planning their perfect wedding!  But I also know that once the wedding is over, once the honeymoon is over, the party is cleaned up, the flowers are dead, the cake is gone… there’s only one way you are going to be able to relive that day, and that’s your photos.  Now photography was obviously an important enough decision that you sought me out instead of using the resort photographer, so now it’s time to trust me.

I want you all to think for a moment about everyone you know that has gotten married. Parents, grandparents, friends.. anyone. Now think about what they still have as reminders of that day. For my parents and grandparents, I can go to their houses and find their wedding albums in a matter of minutes. I’ve looked through them a hundred times, and I still love looking through them on a regular basis. For some of my younger friends who are married though, I’ve never seen an album. Some of them have a formal picture from the church on their wall or on their desk, maybe a Facebook album of images that has long since been pushed off the bottom of their “wall”, and sadly that’s about it. When pressed to see more, most of them have to rummage around for their DVD and then they open up an overwhelming folder of 1000+ images and try to search through for the ones that they loved.

Even if you do manage to print out a big box of your favorite images after your photographer shoots and burns your wedding to a DVD, you’re going to be missing the most important part of what those photos should be doing: retelling your story. When I shoot a wedding, I’m always thinking to myself, ‘how am I going to capture this moment in order to retell it later on’.  I’m always thinking about which images are going to go with which other images as I’m shooting them, and making sure I’m taking all the images I need to retell that part of your story.  Maybe during the ceremony, for example, that means I take a picture of the couple exchanging vows, a picture of mom smiling and wiping away a tear as the rings are exchanged, and the smiles and laughs of the guests as they throw flower petals over the newly married couple as they come down the aisle. Individually, these photos might provoke a slight smile as you look through them. But when all three of these images are designed together onto the same album page – suddenly it’s become a story! Imagine looking through your album, every page you turn becomes an amazing moment from your wedding when the images are groups and designed this way. This is how those images were meant to be displayed – this is why albums have been around for as long as they have!

As always, a picture (or in this case an album) can say more than words alone.  Three days of shooting and some very cool locations in Bangkok.  The wedding was at the Shangri-la Hotel in Bangkok.

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MOVE YOUR FEET!

That’s right – stop relying on your camera to do all the work for you, and get in there nice and close to whatever it is you are trying to take a picture of.  There are plenty of exceptions, of course, but for the most part if you want to take a picture of some flowers, then get in nice and close to the flowers so we can see them.  By doing this, you eliminate all distracting elements and unnecessary space from your image, and will be left with a full-frame image of your subject.  Shooting this way gives a unique perspective on objects we see in our daily lives.

I’m going to post three pictures here below, sort of a beginner-intermediate-advanced look at how different photographers would take the same picture.

First off, the beginner.  Beginners tend to take pictures of things from wherever they happen to be standing.  Sort of like, “Hey look over there, some flowers!” *click*  There is no attention or thought given to the photographer’s surroundings, other objects that might be in the way, or how well we can actually see the subject.  (What is this supposed to be a picture of again?  Flowers or the hand railing??)  This is usually the type of picture that results from such lack of planning:

After a while, the beginner will learn to move his body around a bit, pay some attention to his surroundings, and get a more pleasing looking shot of his subject.  In the shot below, we know that this is a picture of the flowers.  There’s no hand railing or other objects competing for my attention.  There’s still the ugly floor tiles and base board in the picture, but it’s definitely better than the beginner picture:

Finally, the photographer learns to move her feet and get closer to the subject, eliminating all distracting surrounding elements and unwanted space from the image.  We can see the subject clearly, and in a perspective that we wouldn’t see it in our everyday lives.  We’ve finished this image (taken with an iPhone 4s) off in Snapseed to give it a little extra pop:

So before you push that shutter button next time, ask yourself if the image you’re about to take could benefit from a little “foot zooming” first!

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Like I said, nik has long been a favorite company of mine when it comes to editing – and this app takes all of their best products and crams it into one super affordable package!  If you are like me and love taking pictures on the go from your iPhone – just download this app right now and delete any other photo editing program you have installed, I’m not joking!

Here was a quick play I did today – how amazing did this turn out FOR AN iPHONE PICTURE!  One shot as I was walking past the bus station, quick edit while I was drinking my coffee, and oh *SNAP* is right!

OK, just one more.  Was amazed how a silly snap of the floor (again while drinking my coffee lol) turned into something so cool!

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