They are holding up their hands and pointing to their ring fingers. Except they are empty of any wedding rings. That’s because they have just gotten divorced and updated something known affectionately as a ‘divorce selfie.’ Close on the heels of the couples who are quick to heave a sigh of post-marital relief are those on the other end of the nuptials — the wedding Instagrammers. They have dedicated hashtags which are mentioned in bold in the invitation cards itself, so that all pictures uploaded by guests from their smartphones can form an online hashtag album of sorts for the wedding. Caught between the two social media savvy and increasingly in-your-face groups of people celebrating nuptial ends and beginnings, online platforms are now playing host to an interesting invasion of selfies.
Although divorce selfies are still a far cry in India, one of the country’s most prolific wedding planners Vithika Agarwal thinks that one offshoot of the madness surrounding social media representation of weddings are the inclusion of quirky photobooths. She says, “Selfies at photobooths are a different world altogether these days. There are several little details that have been added to a wedding, simply because of the importance of adding them to your instagram wedding album or your ongoing hashtag on Facebook! It’s an explosion!”
The slew of smart phone clickers are a notable distraction for professional and designated photographers whose shots the smart phone flash almost always ruins. Varun Giridhar, a professional shooter along with wife Neeta Shankar, says, “In every wedding you see aunties with their gigantic iPads or kids with their nosy smartphones. They do ruin the aesthetic of the shot, so we ask them to put these away.”
