That Russian Bear Wedding Was Totally Fake

Did you see those photos of a bear officiating a wedding in Russia? Well, as cute as it was, the photo series is totally fake. As in, it’s probably not a real wedding, just a photo shoot. Buzzfeed tracked down the photographer and the people in the photo and laid out the facts.

The evidence that it’s almost certainly just a photo shoot and not a real wedding?

• The photographer, Olga Barantseva, has done a number of staged bear photos in the past.
  
• The photographer insisted that Buzzfeed buy the photos before she would talk with Buzzfeed. And then still declined to comment.
  
• The “bride” and “groom” aren’t even connected on social media. Or at least they weren’t until Buzzfeed started asking questions. And both don’t even mention the wedding on their accounts.
  
• The owners of the tame bear, known as Stepan, wouldn’t talk with Buzzfeed.
  
• The “bride” is listed as single on her Facebook page and doesn’t live anywhere near Moscow, the city where this wedding purportedly took place.
  

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The photos fooled plenty of people though, including The Daily Mail, the New York Daily News, Yahoo News, and The Mirror, among a host of others. So it’s no wonder that Buzzfeed couldn’t get anyone to talk.

It’s all quite shocking, I know. If a bear didn’t officiate a wedding in Russia we don’t know what to believe anymore.

[Buzzfeed]