Smartphones at weddings: Are shutterbugs ruining the couple's big day?

It's pretty common to see people pulling out their smartphones and tablets at wedding ceremonies these days capturing every moment on camera.

More and more Calgary photographers and brides are asking gueststo unplug. The goal of these so-called"unplugged weddings"is to have all gueststurn offtheir technology during the ceremony.

• What do you think of unplugged weddings? Is it fair to ask guests to put away their cameras, smartphones and tablets? Let us know in the comment section below.

Mark Shannon, the owner of Mark Eleven Photography in Calgary, says there are several reasons why.

One is to keep the coast clear for aprofessional wedding photographer, who is paid thousands of dollars to capture the day. Shannonsays it can be tough to do his jobwhen there's a seaof moving iPhones in his wayand sometimesthey can actually ruina picture.

"The one particular shot where the bride had the best expression and the groom had the best expression happened to have a full person's arm from elbow to hand with an iPhone onthe end of it right in the middle of her dress, right in the middle of her bouquet," he said, adding he ended up photoshopping the guest out.

Privacy concerns

Another reason is privacy, asnot everyone wants to share their wedding day with the world and their reasons for thatcan be quite serious.

Because everything is online now,they don't want certain people to see that there was another wedding happening.-Calgary photographerAndrasSchram

"Some people have their second marriages, and they mighthave had issues in the past with their former partners you know, one of them were coming from more of an abusive relationship," said Calgary photographerAndrasSchram.

"Because everything is online now,they don't want certain people to see that there was another wedding happening,there was another marriage, there was happiness happening again in their lives."

When that's the situation,Schram says the bride and groom will ask the officiant to step inand make an announcement before the ceremony.

But it can also be distracting for the bride, many of whom say they wanttheir guests to bereally "present" during the ceremony.

'She wasn't mortified'

"She was so into wanting to capturethe bride that she didn't even realize she had knocked over a glass vase with a whole bunch glass pebbles in it and it literally just flew into the aisleeverywhere," said Anna Vilaysaneabout one Calgary wedding she attended.

"She just kept snapping pictures. She didn't even bother to try andclean it up. She wasn't mortified. She just kept going and snapping pictures and I thought, 'Oh my goodness.'"

Vilaysansaid that's when sheknew she wanted her own wedding to be unplugged, andworked hard to make that happenwhen she tied the knot this past August.

Signs were posted just outside the doors of where her wedding ceremony was held that said, "There's a guy here taking photos.We asked him to come.So pleaserest your cameras.Our ceremony onlyneeds one."

And just to make sure everyonegot the memo,because Vilaysane had guests who didn't read English, she made a flag for her three-year-old ring bearer. He carried it down the aislejust before her grand entrance.

Not all guests looking to unplug

The flag said"Please unplug for the ceremony" with a camera crossed out.

Vilaysanesays it definitely cut down on the amount of bodies and arms leaning into the aisle,but it didn't stop one guest from filming the entire ceremony.

Wedding guests spend a lot of money to be there.-Calgary wedding plannerLynn Fletcher

"We had actually received a video maybe a week after our wedding ofa guest who had taken a video of ourentire ceremony and had his camera on one of our stands,like our centre pieces," saidVilaysane.

"I thought it was funny.But we alsocould see a guest across the aisle had his camera out and he was itching to use it."

So not all guests arethrilled about beingtold not to use theircameras.

"Wedding guests spend a lot of money to be there. They spend money on gifts, travel, accommodations. They want to celebrate in their own way," saidCalgary wedding plannerLynn Fletcher.

Others welcome technology, hashtags

"And for many people, celebrating in their own way is by taking pictures and sharing it online. That's how people communicate now-a-days. So toprevent people from actually communicating the way they want to when they're excited is, I don'tknow if harsh is the word, but it's a little bit contrived in the fact that they actually have to wait to see those photos. A lot of people don't want to have to wait."

Shedoesn't think it's completelyfair to ban guests from taking photos. She believes the bride and groomshould embrace technology.

She advises lettingwedding guests take as many photos as they want and getthemto poston Twitter and Instragramwith the bride and groom's wedding hashtag.

Fletcher says the wedding photographer can't be everywhereall the time,and oftenit's the guestswho capture some of the most magical moments.