Police unit set up to control unruly wedding guests
Practically every wedding photographer in Hampshire or anywhere else in the UK has had to face their fair share of unruly or uncooperative guests, but there can’t be many that thought there was a need for a dedicated police unit to deal with such problems.
The same can’t be said in southern Russia, however, where a special unit has indeed been set up with the sole aim of maintaining security at wedding celebrations, according to reports sweeping the world’s media companies.
Gunfire is no party
The 40-strong unit is tasked with patrolling Adygea’s North Caucasus region, where it is common for wedding guests to party hard, not to mention firing celebratory gunfire from car windows as part of raucous convoys that pay little or no heed to the area’s Highway Code. It’s not uncommon to have to pull warring family members apart at weddings – especially after the Champagne has been drunk, but guns are thankfully rare, and the use of them to mark a happy occasion is all but non-existent.
So, whilst the likes of snappers from Hampshire based wedding photographer Lemontree are tasked with capturing ‘expressions of joy’, the aim of the ‘wedding police’ of southern Russia is to prevent them; when they are ‘uncontrolled’ at least. Members will be placed along the routes taken by wedding convoys, as well as at registry offices and common venues for wedding parties, such as parks and squares, with the main aim of stopping the gunfire and all of the traffic offenses and complete disregard for safety that often goes hand-in-hand with the wedding convoys.
A wedding first
Unsurprisingly, the welding unit is the first of its kind in Russia but, however outlandish it may seem, it does appear that there may be a need given reports that people have lost their lives as a result of the celebratory shooting that goes on. Certainly, it’s logical that something needs to be done to prevent such ‘uncontrolled’ guests waving guns around.
In August, a man was given a £480 fine and had his gun seized after ‘celebrating’ outside Maykop’s registry office. That is a high price for a wedding – unless you’re responsible for footing the bill for the whole event, of course.