Wedding Slide Shows: Are They a Do or a Don’t?

March 13th, 2010

It has become very popular in recent years for the bride and groom to put together a slide show for their wedding. Sometimes displayed during the ceremony, sometimes during the reception, and in a few cases at both, the slide show can be a chance to share pictures which show bow the bride and groom’s relationship developed over the years. The wedding slide show can be very sweet, but it can also be a major bore for guests. This is a look at the slide show concept, and whether it is a do or a don’t.

In an era where “personalization” is the biggest buzzword of wedding planning, there is nothing more personal than pictures of the bride and groom, often set to music. Many of the shows do go all the way back to childhood, through the early courtship of the bride and groom, right up through engagement photos, and even studio shots of the bride in her wedding gown and bridal jewelry taken just days before the event. Such an involved presentation may well last 20 – 30 minutes, which frankly, is well past the attention span of most of the people in attendance.

The chief complaint that wedding guests have about slide presentations is being forced to sit and watch them for extended periods of time. At one wedding I recently heard about, the bride and groom stopped their marriage ceremony to show a 20 minute presentation before they exchanged their vows, and then subjected their hapless guests to a second slide show during the toast portion of the reception. It might have been a beautiful journey down memory lane for the bride and groom, but for everyone else, the slide show was the obstacle standing between themselves and getting fed in a timely fashion!

This is not to say that a couple cannot choose to do a photo presentation without aggravating their guests. The key is to have a slide show playing in the background while something else is going on rather than forcing people to sit still and watch it continuously. If you want to project some images on a wall while guests mingle during cocktails, fine. As long as your guests do not feel like a captive audience, a wedding slide show can be a wonderful addition to a reception.

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