A wedding photographer has revealed the tell-tale sign from a couple’s big day that suggest their marriage may not last.
He said that when he tries to strip away the glamour and excitement of the wedding and look for quieter, more intimate moments between the bride and groom, he gets a pretty good idea of whether or not they will have a successful marriage.
He said that couples who lack an emotional connection in these more candid moments are often more caught up in the wedding, than prepared for a marriage.
The photographer made the comments on a reddit thread titled ‘Wedding photographers of Reddit: can you tell if a couple is going to last or not? If so, how?’
He said: “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.
“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.”
He also added that watching the body language of friends and family of the bride and groom tells a lot about whether they believe the marriage will be a success.
He said that this indicates how much ‘community support’ they have, although adds that a lack of community support will not matter if the couple are truly in love.
Written by Michael Kehoe @michaelcalling