During her time as a professional wedding planner, Robin Yarusso has seen it all — including signs that indicate a couple may or may not be in it for the long haul.
In a TikTok video that received over 3.1 million views, Yarusso shared that throughout her career, she has noticed several events that happen “time and time again” during wedding planning that signal a couple might be heading for divorce.
In total, Yarusso has planned over 100 weddings and between 25 and 30 proposals. She tells TODAY.com that certain behaviors can indicate a larger “problematic system” is occurring based off of the couples she has previously worked with.
“There are certain things that happen that I’ve seen time and time again with my brides and grooms that have divorced later on,” she says in the video.
Cake smashing
The first sign that a couple might not work out, Yarusso says, is when they smash cake in each other’s faces during the reception.
“For some reason, none of my brides and grooms that did that are still together,” she said in the video.
Yarusso tells TODAY.com that if the couple mutually agrees to smash cake in each other’s faces, then she considers that a different story.
“If they didn’t agree on it, didn’t discuss it, or if one said ‘no’ and it still happens, then it’s disrespectful,” Yarusso says. “If the bride looks upset, like ‘Oh my gosh,’ and you didn’t want that to happen — I haven’t had a single couple survive that.”
Wedding budget disagreements
Yarusso says that she finds if one member of the couple is not respectful of the budget, then it might be a sign of larger financial strains on the relationship.
“If I have a bride that is calling me on the side like ‘Lets add this to the flowers, don’t tell Jim,” Yarusso said in the video. “The ‘don’t tells?’ Those people end up getting a divorce.”
She says that the problem is not necessarily about how much a couple spends on a wedding, but whether or not both members are on the same page with their finances. A big wedding does not necessarily mean a couple is going to fail, but going into debt to pay for it might be.
“The amount that you spend on the wedding does not matter,” she says. “The amount of energy you put into understanding a marriage is what matters.”
Poor boundaries with family members
If a family member — such as the parent of the bride or groom — oversteps their boundaries and their child doesn’t do anything to correct their behavior, Yarusso says this can be an indicator of a larger problem.
“Parents overstep all the time,” she says. “But when their child won’t correct them, that’s when I can sense there’s a boundary issue.”
Dramatic behavior
Yarusso says that anything that causes drama at the wedding can indicate that there will be more problems down the road.
She says that drama can be cultivated, for example, when a couple has a large wedding party, or when one member of the couple is overserved.
“A large wedding party usually has a ton of drama,” Yarusso says. “The more drama there is, the worse. If one (member) of the couple ends up extremely intoxicated at the wedding, that’s usually not a good sign … it’s telling me that they aren’t aligned in behaviors.”
An uninterested planning partner
In the TikTok video, Yarusso notes that when the groom doesn’t seem to care about wedding planning, it’s a sign of bigger issues for the to-be-weds.
“If his one job was to pick the DJ, and we are a week out from the wedding and he hasn’t gotten that done, that husband is completely checked out,” she says.
While there are indicators that reveal whether or not a couple might not make it after the big day, Yarusso adds that, most of the time, at least one person getting married knows deep down that something is off.
“If the marriage isn’t going to work, most people know that before they get married,” Yarusso says. “You get a feeling. So, if you’re seeing these, and it’s a red flag indicator, and you’re suppressing it down because you can’t call off a wedding; it’s much easier to call off a wedding than to go through a divorce.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
