It’s become a regular request for me to enter for the ceremony first and remind everyone that the couple had requested an Unplugged Ceremony. Something like this:
Hello everyone and welcome! We have a couple ready to get married. Just a friendly reminder that the couple has requested this to be an Unplugged Ceremony. So be sure to turn off and put away all those phones and be fully present in the moment. Thank-you!
But I had one couple do it a little differently recently. Here’s what they had me say right after the Presentation of the Bride and having everyone be seated:
Welcome, everyone! We’re so excited to have you all here to celebrate with us. We kindly ask that you put your phones and cameras away for the ceremony so we can all be present in this special moment. We have a professional photographer who will be capturing all the important moments, and we can’t wait to share their work with you later. We’d also like to give you an opportunity to take a picture right now. So, on the count of three, please take out your phones, snap a photo if you’d like.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure how well that’d go. But it turned out very nicely. Boy, did the phones come out and a lot of shots were taken of the couple (I stepped out of the picture). Then I came back over, everyone put their phones away and the ceremony continued.
It put smiles on everyone’s faces and all seemed to really enjoy the moment.
Like the idea? The only issue might be that people were using their cell phones to take shots during the processional since the unplugged announcement had not been made. If you really don’t want people using their phones during the processional, you might have the officiant make the unplugged announcement at the start, and then after the presentation of bride, have the officiant tell everyone they can then take their pictures.