These Things at a Wedding Pretty Much Always Have Problems Later

If you’re on social media, you’ve probably seen the wedding videos that go viral for all the wrong reasons. The groom who threw the cake across the room. The mother-in-law who forcibly wiped off the bride’s lipstick. That guy with the horrendously raunchy vows who mortified his new wife in front of all her friends and family.

The comment sections are filled with people saying things like, “It’ll never last,” or “Their marriage is doomed.” But according to an expert, some red flags aren’t as obvious. To get a professional’s take on wedding behaviors that spell trouble, I went straight to the source: I interviewed a divorce attorney.

“Wedding planning is essentially the first major stress test of a marriage,” said Michelle T. Dellino, the CEO and founding attorney of Dellino Family Law Group. Dellino has been in the industry for 20 years, and the patterns couples establish during wedding planning are the exact patterns she sees in dissolution petitions years later. In other words, “Wedding behaviors aren’t symbolic. They’re diagnostic.”

People who do these things at their wedding pretty much always have problems later:

1. Letting relatives overstep boundaries

Unless you live in Utah, marriage is supposed to be a partnership between two people. “Failure to establish boundaries with in-laws at the wedding is one of the most reliable divorce predictors I see,” said Dellino, who calls it the “three-party marriage problem.” When couples let their parents make unilateral decisions about the venue, food, and guest list, it’s only a matter of time before they’re making unilateral decisions about homes, finances, and grandkids.

Dellino cites a 26-year study from the University of Michigan, which found that wives who are overly close with their husbands’ families are 20% more likely to get divorced. Interestingly, husbands who are close with their wives’ families decrease the risk of divorce. In my opinion, it’s because women are held to higher ethical standards.

We’re expected to remain kind, polite, and accommodating — even when our boundaries are crossed. Statistically, women have a harder time saying no, especially to people we care about. We also face harsher social and professional backlash when we do.

Once a couple ends up in Dellino’s office, family enmeshment makes property division and custody negotiations much harder: “You’re not just mediating between two spouses. You’re dealing with extended family members who have no legal standing, but tremendous emotional leverage.”

2. Smashing cake in your partner’s face

This one is probably the most obvious. In fact, I once heard a wedding photographer say she’s never seen a marriage survive a non-consensual cake smash. But clearly, it’s not obvious enough, because people keep doing it.

Including the dress, hair, and makeup, brides spend an average of $2,982 to look their best. Most don’t want to ruin it with frosting (or anything else). “When one spouse explicitly says ‘Please don’t smash the cake,’ and the other does it anyway for laughs, that’s a preview of how consent and boundaries will be handled throughout the marriage,” Dellino said.

It’s public humiliation, and it doesn’t stop there. It escalates: “The cake incident often becomes evidence of a long-standing pattern where ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘no.’” Dellino’s clients often report that non-consensual cake-smashing at their wedding evolved into decades of dismissed boundaries; this time regarding “finances, parenting decisions, and major life choices.”

3. Overspending on the wedding — especially in secret

Finances can be a huge strain on relationships. Given that the average wedding in America costs $33,000, most couples feel that strain before their marriage even begins. A study from Emory University found that couples who spent more than $20,000 on their wedding were 1.6 times more likely to divorce than couples who spent between $5,000 and $10,000. Couples who spent under $1,000 were the most likely to stay together.

But “it’s not just the amount,” Dellino said. “It’s the financial dishonesty that accompanies overspending.”

According to Dellino, who cites the Foundation for Financial Education, almost half of American couples with combined finances are dishonest about their spending… Yet “marriage creates a fiduciary relationship where spouses owe each other complete financial transparency.”

Basically, you’re required to be honest with your spouse about shared money. When a partner lies about wedding costs or hides credit card debt, they’re violating their fiduciary duty, and lying about assets during a divorce is downright illegal. While preparing divorce paperwork for clients, Dellino frequently discovers that hidden wedding debt was the first omission in a string of financial lies that poisoned the marriage.

4. Making disparaging jokes about marriage

I’ve already written about how sitcoms convinced a whole generation that marriage sucks. Baby Boomers largely felt forced into nuclear families, so they made shows, movies, stand-up routines, and countless casual comments about how commitment is a prison.

But now more than ever, marriage is a choice. And if you can’t stop yourself from making “jokes” about how terrible it is, it’s not the right choice for you.

“Pay attention to public complaints about marriage before it starts,” Dellino said. “When someone makes ‘ball and chain’ jokes during toasts or disparages married life on their wedding day, believe them. Those aren’t jokes. They’re declarations of unwillingness to be a spouse.”

Dellino said she’s had ample clients whose exes made those comments on their wedding day. In retrospect, they wish they’d called it off rather than laughing it off.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.