China's Quake- The Ultimate Wedding Crasher

Every bride wants the details of her wedding to be perfect, from the dress to the flowers, but no bride could have predicted this:  

I highly doubt that these unsuspecting couples had any idea that their intimate wedding photos would be seen by millions of their closest friends around the world.  Even though these pictures probably aren't what they have in mind, they're actually an unlikely symbol of hope. 

Five couples were having their photos taken at the now demolished Church of the Anunciation, a French missionary church in Sichuan Province.  

None of the 33 people involved with the photo shoot sustained injuries, but the century-old church collapsed in about ten seconds. 

Instead of heading off for romantic honeymoons, the couples had to camp out in the mountains overnight in their wedding clothes, where villagers took care of them.

Beyond their safety, and more pictures at sohu.com, we still don't know much about the couples.  The photographer, Wang Qiang, has kept the identities of the brides and grooms private, so we'll probably never really know the full story.   

I wonder if they lived in some of the 14 million houses that were ruined in the earthquake.  Maybe some of the wedding guests were among the 292,481 injured, 55,740 confirmed dead, or 24,490 still missing. 

Perhaps the simple act of just taking thier wedding pictures has saved some of the soon-to-be newlyweds from being crushed in a building, or separated from each other for a long time. 

There are so many stories hidden within each of these pictures, and as uninvited viewers of the wedding photos, we will never be unable to uncover them all.   

Few people experience an event of this magnitude during a lifetime of marriage, not to mention the moments right before the wedding.  But if these can survive China's most powerful earthquake in sixty years, they'll be able to tackle their next several decades of marriage.