A guy in the third row stood up during our vows to get a better angle. Phone held high, both elbows out, blocking the aunt behind him who had flown in from Tucson. I did not see it happen. I saw it later, in the corner of our photographer’s best shot, a glowing rectangle floating where someone’s face should be. We had talked about an unplugged ceremony for about four minutes over takeout and then forgot to do anything about it.
So I am the wrong person to lecture you, and also the right one. The trick is not the sign existing. It is the wording. Say it wrong and you sound like a flight attendant. Say it stiff and half your guests feel told off before the bride even walks. I rewrote ours on the back of a grocery receipt in the parking lot of a Trader Joe’s, which is a sentence I did not expect my life to contain.
Below are the templates I would buy again and the lines I tested out loud on my maid of honor until she stopped wincing. I print one on plain paper first, prop it on the kitchen counter, and read it from the doorway like a guest would. If it makes me smile instead of salute, it stays. A couple of these are affiliate links, so if you grab one a little something comes back to me. Doesn’t cost you a thing.
Some links below are affiliate links. If you download one for your day, I earn a tiny bit and it changes nothing on your end.
The one I should have used the first time
This is the template I send the second someone tells me they are panicking about phones. You drop your names in, the spacing holds, and it reads calm instead of bossy. The line I kept on mine: “Welcome. Please be fully here with us. We have hired someone wonderful to capture today, so put the phones away and just watch us get married.” Warm, short, nobody feels scolded.
I printed a test at home on regular paper and stood it against the toaster for two days. Lived with it. The version with the little script header read better from across the room than the all-caps one, which surprised me, because I always assume bigger is clearer.
One gripe. The default font is on the thin side, and our venue ran dim by evening. I bumped the weight one notch before I printed the final on cotton stock. One wasted page. Worth knowing before you print a stack.
Small enough to sneak onto the guest book table
Not every reminder needs to be a giant easel sign at the doors. This little tabletop LOVE piece I tucked next to the guest book, with a tiny tented card propped in front of it that read “Phones tucked away, please. Today we want your eyes, not your screens.” People read the small ones because they are already standing there signing.
I printed the card on leftover ivory stock from our menus so it matched without me planning it. Total accident. Looked intentional.
The catch is size. It is a desk piece, so it does nothing from forty feet. If you want it doing real crowd duty you pair it with a bigger sign at the entrance and let this one handle the close-up tables.
For the cut-and-make crowd who own a Cricut
My cousin has a Cricut and treats it like a personality, so this one went straight to her. It is a cut file, so you are making a real sign, not printing one, vinyl letters on a board or fabric. She did a “Just Married” piece for the getaway car and then talked me into using the same style for a small phones-down placard by the aisle.
The wording she vinyled onto it: “Be present, not on Pinterest. Phones away until we say I do.” Cheeky, and it got an actual laugh from the front row, which I will take.
Fair warning, this assumes you can run a cutting machine without crying. I cannot. I watched her weed the tiny letters for forty minutes and quietly decided printing was my path. If that is not your skill set, skip to a print template.
When the ceremony is outside and the wind has opinions
We did not have a garden flag, but my neighbor used this exact one for her backyard June wedding and I stole the idea for this list because it solved a problem I did not see coming. Outdoor ceremonies eat paper signs. Breeze knocks the easel, the cardstock curls by noon, you spend cocktail hour fixing it.
A fabric flag staked at the path entrance held up all afternoon. Hers read, in the design’s own lettering up top with a small printed tag clipped below, “Welcome to our unplugged ceremony. Find a seat, leave the phone in your bag, soak it in.” Guests passed it on the walk in, which is the right moment to tell them.
My one note. It is summery and floral, so it suits a garden or a park and looks odd in a stone church. Match the vibe or it reads like it wandered in from a different event.
The decor piece doing double duty
A coworker getting married on the coast used this Hello Summer laser-cut piece as a welcome marker, and we repurposed the same trick for unplugged signage at my friend’s later wedding. It is a finished cut piece, more keepsake than printout, the kind of thing that ends up on a shelf afterward instead of the recycling.
We leaned it on a chair at the aisle entrance and slid a small printed card into the frame opening that said “No phones during the ceremony, please. Photos to follow, hugs preferred.” The card carried the words, the cut piece carried the looks.
Honestly the only snag was hanging it. The cutout is delicate and I am clumsy, so I propped instead of mounted after I nearly cracked a corner. Lean it somewhere safe and you are fine.
Built for the woodsy and the offbeat
My brother is having a campground wedding next fall, all string lights and picnic tables, and this round laser-cut sign is the one I keep nudging him toward. Their whole thing is low-key, so a formal calligraphy easel would feel wrong by the fire pit. A round wood-look piece fits the trees.
The wording he is leaning on, which I think is the friendliest version I have heard: “Unplugged and outdoorsy. Phones in pockets, please, our photographer has the whole day covered.” Casual enough for hiking boots and a flannel.
The circle shape is the quirk. Round means less room for text, so you keep it to two lines or it gets cramped fast. He learned that by typing a paragraph in and watching it shrink to nothing.
The compromise sign for the half-unplugged crowd
Not everyone wants a full blackout on phones, and this is the template for the couple who wants guests off devices during vows but happy to snap at the reception. I helped my old roommate set hers up exactly this way. One sign at the ceremony, a different tone at the bar.
Her ceremony line read “Unplugged for the I dos, snap away after,” and she paired it with a reception sign on the same template using a hashtag so people knew when the green light came on. The matching layout meant the two signs looked like siblings instead of strangers.
The thing to watch is consistency. If the fonts drift between your two signs it looks like a copy error, so lock the typeface on the first one and reuse it. She did not, the first time, and reprinted at the copy shop on Beaumont the morning of. Cutting it close.
The Questions I Get Most
What does an unplugged sign say?
Short answer, it says please put your phone away during the ceremony, but the version that works is friendlier than that. Mine ended up as “Be fully here with us. We have a photographer, so put the phones down and just watch us get married.”
A friend asked me this over coffee and I told her the test I use. Read it out loud in the voice of someone you like. If it sounds like a sweet request, keep it. If it sounds like a sign in a library, soften a word and try again.
Where do I put it?
At the entrance, where people slow down anyway. We learned this the hard way because we propped ours up near the altar where nobody looks until they are already seated and already filming. Useless spot.
Put it where they walk in, at eye level, before they sit. If your space is big, two signs, one at the path and one near the seats. The earlier they read it, the better it sticks.
How do I word it nicely?
Lead with welcome, give a reason, then make the ask. The reason is the part people skip. “We hired someone wonderful to capture today” does more work than “no photos,” because it tells them they are not missing anything.
Keep it to two or three lines. I cut mine down on a grocery receipt until it stopped sounding like a rule. A little warmth and one specific promise, that is the whole thing. Anything longer and people stop reading halfway.
One Last Thing
The sign is the easy part. Picking words that sound like you, and not like an airline safety card, is where most couples stall out for an evening. I stalled out in a parking lot, so you are already ahead.
Grab whichever template fits your venue, print one test page first, and read it from the doorway before you commit to the nice stock. If it makes you grin, you got it right. If it makes you stand up straighter, write it again.