Social media is a giant part of our lives. It’s rare that when something interesting or important happens in our lives, we don’t stop and say, “Hold on a second,” and slide open Instagram, Facebook, or even Snapchat. We document everything, every place, every memorable moment and share it with our personal world of best friends, acquaintance-like friends, and sometimes even strangers.
Which is why when you’re planning your wedding, in this modern day and age, where social media is almost as natural as a sneeze, you may toy with the idea of having a social media free wedding.
If you’re considering asking your wedding guests to be hands free throughout the night, meaning you’ve decided to place an embargo on them posting photos or live tweeting moments from your special day, you may wonder how do you even set this rule in place and how do you monitor it throughout the night?
When you say I Do to going with this social media free route, it’s best you notify your guests ASAP and explain to them what this means. Put a separate card with info and send it off with your wedding invitations, make a note of it on your wedding website, and even have a fun and playful sign when guests walk into your wedding.
Set personal rules that you’re most comfortable with, either asking guests to refrain from posting until they leave the wedding or to refrain from posting anything at all. That means no wedding hashtag, no snapchatting secretly, and even no sneaky photo texts to their friends during cocktail hour.
If you do this, you don’t need to give your guests a reason. You can simply say you’re looking forward to having them there as present as possible, which means having them press the off button on their cell phones for the evening.
But as for monitoring this throughout the night? Don’t even bother. You’ll drive yourself crazy and you’ll feel like you’re the phone police. Trust your guests and hope for the best. That’s all!
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