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17th Apr 2018

Wedding photographer shares ultimate ‘sign’ that a marriage will fail

It makes sense too.

Cathy Donohue

Wedding photographer

“Wedding photographers of Reddit: can you tell if a couple is going to last or not? If so, how?”

This is the name of a thread posted on Reddit which has been commented on numerous times. It seems people are really interested because it includes recollections from wedding photographers, who are very close to a couple on their big day.

One of the submissions really stands out because it was shared by a wedding photographer who talks about this exact subject regularly with his photography business partner.

An excerpt from his comment reads:

“We have only been doing this about five years, but I’d guess that if we were to follow up at the ten year and twenty year marks we would have a pretty good hit rate for predicting this.

Here are some reasons why:

We spend 8, 10, 12 or more hours in a day looking at the bride and groom through a frame that isolates them alone and together, largely stripping away the broader context and focusing on their interactions. We are looking specifically for moments of contact, of intimacy, of emotional connection. It pretty quickly becomes evident when those things are there, and when they are not.

We also spend a lot of time listening to the language they use in pre-meetings, engagement shoots, on the wedding day, etc. It becomes pretty clear in a short time what the focus is. Many couples, particularly young couples, pretty clearly have in mind a wedding but have put little thought and planning into a marriage. The difference we see between a young couple and an older/second marriage couple is pretty significant”.

The Reddit user then went on to say that how a couple’s family and friends act around them can tell a lot too about whether they agree with the couple’s decision to wed, referring this to the amount of ‘community support they have’.

However, he then clarifies that if two people are really in love, the lack of community support won’t really matter.

You can read the post in full here and although it’s not a new Reddit addition, it’s one that people have a significant interest in nonetheless.