Feeling totally overlooked as mother of the bride

@Lilygreen42 I helped my daughter with a lot of the preparations beforehand, decorated the church with flowers with my sister, helped prepare the presents for the guests, wrote out all the names for the place settings.

Lily your dd did allow you to be a big part of the wedding. It is an honour to decorate the church with flowers and for your dd to walk down the isle. Your dd honored you and showed she trusted you to do the important little tasks......how would you have felt if she had allowed her MiL to do those tasks? Then you would have justification for being left out. It is unfortunate about the photo you wanted with your dd but you should have asked before the day. My advice is to go on the family photo shoot and do not mention your upset to your dd or SiL. Do not jeopardise your relationship with your dd and SiL. Due to your SiL's Mum having passed away you will be the only Nanny, look forward to that and making future photos. Memories are in your head anyway.

Mother of the Bride is important. Without the mother there would never have been the bride!
In which case roll out the tiaras and flower crowns, ensure everyone realises the mother of the bride is chief guest if honour. Give her her own hen party thrown by the bride to ensure she feels suitably special and has enough attention.
This generation really are all about themselves..........
Or wedding traditions have changed and the couple were too busy enjoying a day with friends and family to be fretting over who would feel hard done to in the final photo edit.

Remember the OP also didn't mention the photos on the day because they were busy enjoying the day.

OP, wedding days are a complete blur for most brides.
It is a shame you didn't get the photo you wanted but if you wanted a photo with your dd it would have been sensible for you to make sure it happened.
I don't really understand the complaint about the corsage, I wouldn't have thought that was unusual.
Like other posters I am going to assume that this is actually about other stuff, either your other losses during the year or your fundamental with your dd.
Your reaction to the wedding stuff is out of proportion to what happened and quite focused on yourself. Maybe you need a bit more nurturing in RL.

I should have added of course it was the Bride's day but don't leave mum out altogether.
She still is relevant.
Can this generation of bride's see themselves taking a backseat when their DD's get married? If they do.

Mother of the Bride is important. Without the mother there would never have been the bride!

I understand OP. It was mean to overlook you.
This generation really are all about themselves..........

Photographs on the day are often pressured and a nightmare. This almost happened on my wedding day as the grooms family are lovely, but louder than mine and kept asking for more and more photos of their side and we were running out of time. I had to tell the photographer to take some of my side, which I am glad about as a family member died soon after.

The hen party I would have organised for my daughter tbh and the flowers could have just been overlooked. For the location of the wedding, do the couple live there, or perhaps it could be more people from that side would have needed to travel, or that they liked the venue.

The thing is, it is possible that your feelings are justified, or maybe that a few little things just got forgotten in the stress of it all. Or it could be that she feels closer to them, as hurtful as that might be

I'm sorry you've had such a horrid time recently. I can completely understand why you are upset that you don't have some lovely photos of you and your daughter from her wedding day. I don't think it's your fault you didn't mention it to the photographer, I would have thought taking a few shots of mother and bride would have been pretty standard and not need pointing out. I'm glad you are going to get some other photos taken.

Sorry, haven't RTFT but just wanted to reiterate that it really isn't about you, OP. My husband and I eloped (for various reasons), told no one until my new husband couldn't hold it in any longer and called his mother from our honeymoon. I knew what would happen before it even did as my MIL has form for making everything about her. She threw a tantrum because she felt he should have told her and no one else. No "congratulations", no "wow! how was it"... nothing. Just bitterness that she was as in the dark as the rest of each side of our families. Really put a dampener on things. I'd advise you not to do the same to your daughter.

Did you pay for the photographer? If not it's not your place to complain to them!

It's not all about you.

BUT, you say yourself that you've had a really stressful year... Could it be that this fixating on an event that happened a year ago (that I'm guessing you enjoyed in the moment?) be your brain's way of trying to focus on something really quite trivial, in order to "save you" from the stuff that is genuinely causing you stress? ie: your son being away, and your own mum's failing health.

Brain's work in peculiar ways sometimes, and will sometimes fall upon some really odd self-preservation strategies.

Put the photos away for the moment and try and consider some realistic "fixes" for the stuff that is genuinely causing you stress. Your mum's dementia for instance is unavoidable, but what aspect stresses you the most? Losing her? Dealing with the practicalities of her dying? The feelings that she's not the same as she once was? You can't halt her decline, but what CAN you do, practically, that might reduce your anxiety? Can you visit her more/less regularly? Can you check her finances/will is in order? Can you speak to someone in her home about your worries? They can help prepare you for what's ahead.

The same with your son at university? What would make you feel better about that? Speaking to him more? Seeing him more regularly? Things like that need to be openly and explicitly communicated. Use your words to say what you need. People will help you, if you ask.

Ask yourself, honestly and truly, are the wedding photos REALLY HONESTLY TRULY what's getting to you right now? Or were they just the last in a very long series of straws? Sit with the awkward feelings for a bit, acknowledge them, and then start to look for tangible actions to solve them. Best of luck!

@Lilygreen42 I think a lot of people have been very, very harsh on you here.

I can totally understand why you're upset about the photos and I can also understand why you didn't notice on the day that there weren't many of you and your daughter. A big wedding is a busy, hectic day with cameras all over the place and lots to do, after all. Something similar happened with my brother's wedding photos - nobody's fault, really, it's just the photographer wasn't on the ball and none us noticed. There were lots of photos he was meant to get, mostly of our side of the family, which he never took, and we only really realised that when we got the pictures - and my mum in particular, who absolutely loves family photos and has loads in frames etc, was upset.

I can also see why you would have liked a corsage but I think a lot of couples just do button-holes for the men these days.

The hen do - well, I can see why someone in the throes of preparing for a wedding might not find time to organise an extra hen night. I expect your daughter just didn't realise how important it was to you - and I'm sure the fact that you've had a bad year all round is influencing the way you feel.

All in all, I don't think you sound self-centred at all, honestly. I do understand why, as mother of the bride, you wouldn't want to feel like every other guest and it's totally OK to feel that way. But I'm sure your daughter absolutely didn't intend it to turn out the way it did.

I bet my mil is still seething 3 years on that she didn't have a photoshoot with her golden child, she was equally confused as you as to who was actually getting married.

It wasn't your wedding day, as long as your daughter and her husband had a lovely day it really doesn't matter what you think. Let it go.

I didn’t want photos with my mum on my wedding day but my mum asked the photographer so she took them 🙄 you should have asked OP.

Doesn’t sound like you and your daughter are as close as you think.

You sound very much like my own mother. It’s all very me me me.

She didn’t arrange my hen party. She should have but didn’t but still wanted me to arrange shit for her.

Give yourself a shake OP.

YANBU, however I find this to be both your fault and your DD's.

I'm getting married next year and in our initial talk with the photographer we discussed the aspect of showing him who the important people are so he'll know exactly.

Also, my main fear is that I won't have enough pics of family so i'll make sure to have a mini photoshoot with them on the day and separately with mom & dad & my grandparents (thankfully I still have two sets o GPS)

Re flowers: we won't do any corsages or anything so I feel you're being a bit unreasonable.

I'd advise you to accept the offer on the family shoot. Obviously not the same thing and not ideal but better than nothing. Please don't ruin your relationship with DD over this.

Perhaps cardamon
I think it's a selfishness thing and a personality thing. Some people like a big fuss and the whole pomp and attention (look at wedding threads on here where families seem to be incapable of understanding that a couple may not want a big ceremonial affair).

One generation isn't enough for a big shift. I can understand grandparents finding cohabitation before marriage a social change, but a parent lamenting they didn't get enough fuss on their child's wedding day is more about them than changing norms.

Why didn't I realise about the photos not being taken? I was taken up with the whole day, going from one thing to the next, it's always rather mad on wedding days, isn't it?

Yes which is why your daughter, the bride, probably forgot to ensure she had a photograph taken with you.

That. My head was a whirl throughout my daughter's recent wedding. I've been looking back at mistakes I might have made. I'm not good at social stuff, so I'm worrying about whether I spoke to various people enough, did I forget to do this/that? For the bride it must be even worse! The odds of her noticing exactly what photos the photographer took are pretty slim.

I know what you mean about not having a role as such though. The MOB sounds like a role, but unlike the Best man, bridesmaids etc you don't actually do anything.

The official photos havent arrived yet. To be honest I have no recollection of my daughter and me having a specifically just us photo. Presumably I'll find out soon.

Oh, and the bride doesn;t organise her own hen do! If you wanted a family one it was down to you and your other daughter!

I haven't RTFT but I think this is a generational thing. My DM was crying on my brother's wedding day as she felt her role of MOTG wasn't given its dues I and 30 others had to explain to her that weddings nowadays are much more bride/groom centric and less extended family. The photographer was even saying that lots of couples don't even get family shots, they are all about the B&G.

OP you sound like you have had a really tough year

I haven't seen a corsage at a wedding for decades .

Surely you / your DD should have just asked for a photo together. And there is nothing stopping you from getting some nice mother/ daughter photos taken professionally now.

Blimey, if the mother of the bride is not important in a wedding, who is.
They're important, but not important enough to warrant having corsages for them (of the couple are choosing not to do them) and not important enough to be annoyed that the bride didn't throw them a specific special hen do, and not important enough to be contacting the photographer a year later because they are annoyed that they don't have enough photos or photos they want.
Not important enough to justify helping prep a wedding, which most family members do, but decide later that you were a dogsboddy because woe is me has hit when you didn't have enough attention.
Ask anyone who no longer have their mum when they got married how much they missed them.
MN bingo. Don't challenge any unreasonable behaviour from a mum because some people don't have their mums anymore.

Some posters are absolutely ridiculous and projecting massively.

Blimey, if the mother of the bride is not important in a wedding, who is.
Ask anyone who no longer have their mum when they got married how much they missed them.

It's natural to be disappointed not to have a photo of the 2 of you.

Photographs, there is usually a standard list so B&G, then bride with her parents, groom with his parents etc.
There's no standard list.
There's whatever the couple want to be taken.

Some weddings I've been to have done the every version of individual/family/friends photos, others they've done a couple of family group ones and the wedding party bit the rest are casual, others are entirely in photojournalism style.

The problem with people deciding there's a standard is that it gives leaverage for someone to feel hard done to when someone else's day doesn't tick their boxes.

OK I think that has wrapped that up nicely

OP there are two topics that will send people into a frenzy on forums

• Weddings
• How you share finances with your partner

I usually do think a lot of people are overly dramatic and precious on here (especially about birthday/valentines/anniversaries etc) but actually I think it's shit the photographer didn't know who all the key people were. There should definitely be photos of the mother and the bride!