These days, if you don’t post a video of yourself saying “I do” on Instagram, you might as well have said, “I do not”.
Social media is an integral cog in the wedding industry’s relentlessly whirring machine. It’s opened up an entirely new employment sector, with many couples hiring dedicated wedding content creators to capture the perfect photos and videos for their social accounts.
Some of it can be harmless; a flattering snap of your first kiss here, a champagne pour video there. But it’s not hard to see how excessive it can get: think ludicrously long photoshoots while your guests celebrate your nuptials without you and staged dance routines designed for TikTok.
This week, we learned just how bonkers it can actually get: a man in Melbourne, Australia swindled the woman he was dating into marrying him so he could post about it on social media. Yes, really. The bride, who was in her mid-20s and cannot be named due to legal proceedings, met the groom on a dating app in September 2023. Three months later, he invited her to a “white party” in Sydney where she soon learned the man had organised to marry her.
“When I got there, and I didn’t see anybody in white, I asked him, ‘What’s happening?’” the woman told the court. “He told me that he’s organising a prank wedding for his social media. To be precise, Instagram, because he wants to boost his content and wants to start monetising his Instagram page.” The bride proceeded with the nuptials, thinking the wedding wasn’t legally binding. “We had to act to make it look real,” she said.
Later, she discovered the wedding was real and has since been granted an annulment by the court. The groom has disputed this version of events, claiming he proposed the day before the wedding.
It’s an extreme story but one that points to a universal truth: that our relationship with social media and weddings has gone too far. Increasingly, this is something I’ve started to feel quite strongly. Over the summer, I went to three weddings. But I felt like I went to 300 in light of how many photos I saw all over Instagram. The snaps are often identical, too: the happy couple laughing as they throw confetti in the air, the happy couple laughing as they cut into their wedding cake, the happy couple kissing as they perform their first dance. It’s the same ritual over and over again and frankly, I’m bored of it.
And that’s just the guests. I’ve been to some weddings where social media content has felt like the driving force behind the whole thing. Take the one I went to a few years ago in Greece where the bride and groom missed their wedding reception because they wanted to take sunset photos on a yacht. They were on the boat for two hours. I later found out that half of the wedding had been paid for because the bride, who had a sizeable Instagram following, had promised to post about it on her social media. It transpired that almost everything was #sponcon, from the cake and the dress to the bride’s fake tan and eyelash extensions.
Look, I understand that weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime occasion people want to cherish. And yes, I can see why you’d want to capture some flattering photos to share with friends and family on social media. But when you lean too far into this, it detracts from the main event, which is not how hot you looked in your dress, or how toned your arms looked in that dancing snap. It’s about making a lifelong commitment to someone you love and celebrating that with your closest pals. It’s a time when you want to be totally and completely present. And social media, while fun, takes you out of that and puts you into a Valencia-filtered 1:1 box, which is surely the antithesis of romance.
Recently, I heard about a wedding where social media was banned altogether. Guests were politely asked not to take any photos and certainly not to post anything on Instagram. Some said it was a little extreme and proceeded to take photos anyway. But others abided, happy to have such a stringent policy in place that allowed everyone to celebrate together without obsessing over their smartphones. Frankly, I think this should be the norm. And if I ever find myself saying “I do” to someone, it won’t be filmed for Instagram. It will be a special moment witnessed only by my closest friends and family in attendance, which I’m increasingly certain is exactly the way it’s supposed to be.
