Do you ever just take a moment to sit in silence?  Just stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, turn off the TV, put down your phone and sit quietly.

How do you feel? What are your emotions at this moment?  Just breathe in and breathe out.  Let your thoughts circle around you.

Photography: Clary Pfeiffer Photography

A few weeks back after the kids were to bed and while hubby was still at work, I experienced a moment of silence.  After a couple of minutes of merely sitting on the sofa, I started to grab my phone and mindlessly scroll through Instagram.  I thought about finding something else to watch on Netflix.  But I fought the urge.  I sat there without a sound, without a movement, for a few minutes more.  I had to battle myself the entire time.

Prior to this moment, I had watched a sappy Nicholas Sparks movie.  They get me every time. It made me smile, it made me cry and at the end I was a blubbering mess of emotions.  When it was over, I wanted those emotions to disappear.  I couldn’t feel the hurt and sadness anymore.  After all, it was just a movie.

But instead, I embraced this rare moment in time and let myself feel things.  I pondered exactly why this movie made these feelings surface in the first place.  I took the time to sort out things that have been haunting me for years, but I’m always just a little too busy to stop and think about.  I thought about love, I thought about life, I thought about family and past relationships.

Oddly enough, the following Sunday the message at church circled around the idea that people are so busy that they don’t take the time to properly grieve.  They don’t take the time to feel things, embrace their emotions and understand what their senses are telling them.  They become a tangled mess of a person who doesn’t know how to deal with life when something when it doesn’t go their way.  In biblical times, when someone died they would find people to come cry with them.  They would sit in a period of mourning and embrace their grief – for days, for weeks. Today, we encourage people to get back to work, get back to normal, stay busy.  The hurt will go away.

But it doesn’t.  It just gets buried under the busy of the moment.

We’ve created a generation of people who are hot headed and miss out on so much of life because they cannot properly channel their joys and sorrows.

It’s for this reason that I encourage you to have an unplugged wedding.  There are arguments that iPhone cameras get in the way of photographers.  Point and shoot flashes can be damaging to the venue’s natural light.  And guests get in the aisle way and try to get the very best shot, therefore preventing the professionals from doing their job effectively.  All very valid arguments.

However, I think by encouraging your friends and family to put down their phones/cameras, you’re actually doing them a favor.   You’re taking away the pressure for them to get the very best shot and be the first one to post it to Facebook.  You’re giving them the opportunity to be present with you and experience the joy and celebration that’s happening in your hearts during your union.  You’re allowing an excuse to disconnect from the rest of the world and focus solely on what’s happening right in front of them.  Let them inspect every flower that’s been so painstakingly selected.  Enable them to smell the sweet scent of the fresh summer air.  Allow them listen not only to the musicians, but the birds and the babbling brook in the background.  Give them the opportunity to reconnect with family that traveled from afar to share this day. And encourage them catch up on life happenings with old friends. It’s your gift to them on your wedding day.

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