It's wedding season, y'all! And one thing I love about wedding season is judging people's relationships. Just kidding. However, wedding workers — including photographers, bartenders, planners, and more — can almost always tell when a relationship isn't gonna work out.
Last week, I wrote a post about wedding workers sharing red flags they can spot at weddings that say, "This marriage ends in a divorce." Our BuzzFeed Community came through and added some examples of their own.
Here's what people said:
1. When the wedding is planned by the groom's mother:
"Wedding photog' for 10+ years. I’ve yet to see a wedding planned by the groom’s mom that didn’t end in divorce. I get that this is anecdotal, but sure seems to be a strong trend."
2. When one person doesn't care at all about photos of the day:
"I'm a photographer. After a whole day of trying to wrangle the bride and groom for pics, I finally get them. I tell the couple I literally have zero photos of them alone together and we need to go. He says, 'Yeah, yeah after the speeches.'
He gets up to speak after several of his friends and his sister do 10-minute speeches and he goes on. And on. And on. Most of it has nothing to do with his new bride. 30 minutes into his speech and the sun has set. He finally finishes and I approach the bride. She just looks at me, defeated, and says, 'You can just go home now.'"
3. When there's rampant disorganization:
"I did wedding photos for a friend's wedding, and I knew it was cursed from the jump. I showed up to the park pavilion where it was being held an hour early for set up. No one was there. Finally, folks started filling in to bring in food, "decorations", and folding chairs. So I get a couple spots off the cake, and the band, whatever I could to keep busy. The wedding was supposed to be at least somewhat dressy, but almost all the guests were dressed like they just stopped by on their way to pick something up at Walmart. To add to this train wreck she had asked another photographer to show up, without telling either of us, so we had to figure out how to work around one another the whole time. And then neither of us got paid. They got divorced a year later."
4. When they care more about the party element:
"When they say, 'The wedding is more about the party afterwards anyway.'"
5. When they have an out-of-touch registry:
"If the registry has nothing under $50 or has a PayPal or Venmo link — bad news."
6. When the wedding cost supersedes their income:
"If the wedding is over $100,000 and the bride and groom make 30% of that — red, red flag."
7. When the emotions and excitement don't match:
"When it came to the vows, he was crying his eyes out and was just so happy and excited to be marrying the love of his life while she cringed through it (she did try to hide it), but she looked extremely uncomfortable. It didn’t last six months."
8. When one of them is drunk by the "first dance":
"Groom not socializing at the reception and was drunk by the first dance. Marriage lasted less than a year, they were together for many years beforehand."
9. When they do any of these things:
"I worked in hotel management in catering, literally have been at hundreds of weddings. Some of the things I've seen: Groom hooking up with one of my waitresses in a storage closet. Groom fucking bridesmaid in a storage closet. Bride and groom having a fistfight over the way the cake was presented. Groom and/or bride hitting on other people in the wedding (groomsmen, bridesmaids). Family members getting drunk and fighting each other. Divorce inevitable."
10. When the groom is caught on a hot mic:
"I used to do wedding videography. The grooms are always mic’d up throughout the entire event. I think these idiots forget about the mic or assume when a camera isn’t pointed at them they’re not being recorded, but that’s not how it works. I have their audio of the entire time that it is on, so I often bust the groom or one of his groomsmen at some point commenting about his cheating, having cheated, or worse case 'plans' to cheat."
11. When the bride or groom's eyes light up for someone else:
"I photographed the groom and saw his eyes light up when a guest arrived. I looked over, and it was a cute woman in a short dress. He smiled, walked up to the woman, picked her up, and swung her in his arms. Best smile I captured of the groom all day. Marriage didn’t last six months from what I’ve heard."
12. When there are arguments about money on the wedding day:
"When the bride and groom argued over why the groom's mother shouldn’t get all the money given to them on their wedding day. Yeah, that was a red flag."
13. When the groom dances more with his mom than his wife:
"The groom danced with his MOM more times than he did with the bride."
14. When the bride and groom show subtle signs of hatred:
"Former wedding photographer here. Shot a wedding where the bride and groom spent the day displaying such contempt for each other in really subtle ways that I knew it wouldn’t last a year. They divorced nine months later."
15. When the wedding is all about one person:
"Wedding was at a military venue. Massive wedding. Must have been 300 people there. Everyone who spoke was in the military. His CO got up and spoke. Everything was about the groom. And his mother was in charge of everything."
16. And lastly, when they have husbands they've known for a few months:
"I worked at David's Bridal — about 5 miles away from a massive military base. The amount of girls (not women, just...girls) that came in for wedding dresses that had only known their enlisted fiancé for 5–8 months was depressing. I can only think that none of those couples are married now."
Did they miss any? Let me know in the comments below!
Responses edited for length/clarity.