Wedding photo causes widespread outrage on social media: 'This is the saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time'

A groom has come under fire after his friend shared the "saddest" photo of him at his own wedding.

A couple's wedding is usually the most important day of their lives. Credit: Peter Cade/Getty Images

For most people, their wedding day is one of the most important (and expensive) days of their life.

So most brides and grooms tend to try and soak in every moment after months of build-up, and make sure nothing detracts from their magical day.

However, Torrey Leonard shared a snap of his friend and co-founder of his business, Casey Mackrell, sitting at a table at his own wedding with his laptop out and working.

He captioned the snap: "My co-founder Casey has built a reputation for himself as 'the guy who sits on his laptop in bars' from SF to NYC

"Last week Thoughtly [the pair's joint start-up business] brought on a customer that needed to launch within 2 weeks. He just so happened to be getting married within that 2 week window…

"So, here he is wrapping up a pull request. At his own wedding."

Credit: LinkedIn/Torrey Leonard

Torrey finished the post by writing: "Congrats Casey– now please, go take some time off."

Now, nobody can fault a work ethic like that, but sometimes you have to draw the line - especially when it comes to working at your own wedding.

In the snap, Casey could be seen tapping away at his laptop while his guests appeared to be having a great time on the dancefloor around him.

Unsurprisingly, the post soon went viral and led to some strong reactions on LinkedIn.

Many people were unimpressed that the groom was logging on at his own wedding, writing: "This has to be one of the most depressing posts I've ever seen on LinkedIn," and: "This is one of the saddest things I’ve seen."

Others added: "Divorce papers being sent to his LinkedIn inbox so he actually sees them… In all seriousness though, if this isn’t satire, this work ethic should neither be publicised nor applauded. Doesn’t say a lot about the company either, if he was the ONLY person that could deal with this that day…"

Another commented: "This is the most depressing thing I've ever seen on LinkedIn and *that* is saying something," while someone else wrote: "Utterly bizarre to post this. This is nothing to brag about. This guy is his laptop, working at his own wedding and you're congratulating him? Dearie me. Completely tone deaf."

Now, there is of course a chance that the post was in fact staged as a publicity stunt for the company, but it seems to have backfired a bit.

One person wrote: "There’s no way whatever 'Thoughtly' is (likely some AI b2b puffware), it’s worth spending your brief time on earth 'wrapping up a pull request,' at your own wedding. A lesson is here for marketers though: whenever I hear Thoughtly from now on I’ll think of nothing but this sad, deranged picture and post celebrating it by its co-founder."

Another added: "Asking this in good faith (because it's made r/LinkedInLunatics) - is this staged? Was he actually working at his wedding, or is it a joke?", while someone else wrote: "This would just make me question the time management skills of thoughtly."

People were not impressed that he logged on during his own wedding. Credit: Kobus Louw/Getty Images

Some even went as far as to question the relationship, writing: "If I was his wife, I'd be filing for an annulment the next day. Of course, I'm sure there were multiple red flags before this. This ain't it, bros."

Torrey defended Casey's decision to log on while at his wedding, however, telling news.com.au: "As a company, what we do is very high-stakes. Every single one of our customers, they depend on us to function perfectly, 24-7, around the clock, no questions asked.

"We work with many publicly traded companies across the globe, and we spend long hours of the night, early mornings awake, monitoring these calls, proactively fixing issues, fixing problems, building new features.

"The context of this post, he had to solve a problem, and it was really only something that he could solve. It was a three- to five-minute task."

He added that they understand that "this lifestyle is not for everybody" but said that they "love" their business, despite it being "a lot of work".

Torrey also pointed out that as the co-founders, the problems ultimately get escalated up to them and won't "go away" if the people under them are unable to solve them.

He explained: "The problem still exists. And so we either accept, okay, we’re going to fail a customer, or we’re going to make a happy customer. And so we always do the latter in every situation. No question."

Casey is apparently no stranger to whipping his laptop out at any point. Credit: d3sign/Getty Images

He also added that Casey's bride, Grace - who presumably is no stranger to him logging on at any given moment - wasn't bothered by him quickly doing a bit of work during their wedding.

And Torrey clarified that Casey is just as committed to Grace, adding: "Casey is just as devoted to Grace as he is to the company. If she needs something, he acts the same way. He would drop everything for her. And so she gets that, and she loves that about him."

The groom also commented on the LinkedIn post, adding: "Don’t worry I got back to dancing and champagne 2 seconds later."

As long as the bride and groom are happy, that's all that matters, we suppose.

Featured image credit: Peter Cade/Getty Images