Shredding wedding photos is an actual business in China
This is definitely different, we never thought there would be an actual market for this.
Weddings are definitely meant to be happy occasions, but marriages sometimes don't always end with happily ever after.
For this reason, there are many divorces that take place. Where once this was a taboo topic to even mention in countries that form part of the Asian continent, nowadays, it has become much more accepted and therefore we see more couples getting divorced.
"Tearing up wedding photos after a failed marriage isn’t as easy as it sounds in China, a country where it’s customary to immortalize wedding stills on tough acrylic canvases that also happen to be very resistant to flames." (Oddity Central)
There is also a certain decorum that comes with discarding one's wedding photos in China.
Just discarding them in the trash is no good because there is the possibility that someone might find them and recognise the couple. This is quite surprising to us though, divorces are generally quite public so it wouldn't come as a surprise to find discarded wedding photos in the trash.
But it does say a lot about society as a whole. Even though you can be divorced, there is a certain standard that people hold themselves up to and prefer not to add to the gossip mongers.
The whole debacle of getting rid of wedding photos has opened up a market that previously might've been scarce.
One young man found that market and is now reaping the rewards of his unusual business - shredding wedding photos. Liu started his new company which specialises in shredding wedding photographs and protecting their privacy.
"Wedding photos fall into the category of personal privacy items, and I believe there is a strong demand for my service. We have received orders from every province and municipality across China, except for Tibet.” (Oddity Central)
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The nature of his business is based on privacy and so, Liu has a pricing plan in place for the varied sizes of photos.
Once a quote is accepted, customers mail their photos to him and he videos the shredding and sends it to the customer as proof that the job was completed.
In some instances, Liu's staff spraypaint the photographs to ensure they remain anonymous.
It is interesting to note that damaging photos is believed to be a bad superstition, but his business has surprisingly been quite popular and is the only one of its kind in China that we've heard of.
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