Feeling totally overlooked as mother of the bride

Please don't feel overlooked - I actually didn't get a picture of me and my mum, I have no idea how it got missed but it did. Sometimes these things just happen through no fault of anyone. My mum had a wonderful day, 4 years on and she doesn't stop talking about it...!

Its easy to say the wedding isn't about you and to be honest its not but it is a family affair and parents (I know mine did) feel invested in the day - not in an ownership kind of way but they felt emotionally attached. Getting caught up in the day and not getting all the photos you mean to get is so common - it happened at my wedding.

I think this is a great opportunity for a mum/daughter day - get your make up done, get in your dresses, go out for lunch and get a professional session at a nice photographer. Weddings are important but they are also just one day and doesn't mean you can capture that love moment with each other.

As for the flowers and things - those traditions are very old fashion now and shouldn't be expected. The modern wedding etiquette is now more "whatever makes the bride and groom the happiest".

I think a lot of people on here are being unkind.

What I think is that you are dealing with a lot of emotions right now and maybe acting in an abnormal way. Were you going through a tough time when she was getting married also?

I think with any wedding hindsight exposes a lot. I can look back at my wedding and change things that upset me now.

I wouldn’t mention anything as you could have also ensured a few things were done but didn’t. Just bare all this in mind for the day that you son marries. Everyone juggles a lot for a wedding so I doubt she had done it purposefully.

I’m sorry it’s been a stressful time. Please don’t delve on the wedding. Did your daughter have a great day? Is she happily married, healthy etc...? If so, that’s the most important. Perhaps the two of you could have a lovely mother and daughter lunch and afternoon together?

I am so sorry that you're having such a rough time in life generally at the moment. When everything comes at once like that, it's like having your protective layers stripped away. We feel more vulnerable, and we are liable to overreact to small things.

I would also be a little bit hurt by this, but it's the type of thing that's not really worth raising or making a fuss about. At the end of the day, the wedding is for the bride and groom, and some people do get a little bit selfish about it and forget that other people have also made a big effort towards it as well. I don't think 'mother/father of the bride' is such a big deal nowadays as it used to be; it's quite normal for those to be really small roles now.

Why don’t you arrange something special now for you and her? Just because. :)

I learnt at a wedding you have to plan and put yourself out for photos, my best friend in a group of 3 never got a photo with us on her wedding and was very upset.
Yabvu about the rest, it is not your day, if you weren't happy to help for the sake of helping then you shouldn't have bothered.
It seems like your DD actively included you in the planning.

And I don't know why people are being so harsh. You're the bride's mother FGS, not some irrelevant nobody just going to a wedding of a work colleague

Is it reasonable for a bride's mother to be annoyed she didn't have a corsage given to her to make her stand out? (Even though no women were given them)
Is it reasonable for the mother of the bride to be annoyed she didn't get a separate hen party thrown for her by the bride?
Is it reasonable for the mother of the bride to contact the photographer a year later because she isn't happy she features enough in the photos?

It doesn't matter if she is the mother of the bride or not. That's no grounds for stamping her feet saying "poor me the day wasn't enough about me, I didn't get enough attention"

Oh and as for the corsage and hen. I never got either of those for my mother. It didn’t occur to me to do either. I wasn’t really interested in having a hen do either.

You say you’ve never been married. You were the mob. You saw how stressful that was for you on the day.

Having been a bride, I can tell you the whole wedding is a bit of a whirlwind. It really didn’t occur to me to have specific ones behind those directed by the photographer at the church.

The photographer came to the venue for a while and took various photos of dh and me and walked around to take shots of guests and people dh or I happened to be talking to. Perhaps this is what happened with your sils family and it wasn’t preplanned at all.

I managed to grab a photo with two of my family members - one on each side so they were unrelated and it is lovely to have this picture of the 3 of us as they are both now dead. That was in no way planned.

You’ve had a horrible year. You can be unhappy about the past. Or you can choose to give yourself the gift of a photo shoot with your dd.

I'm not a demanding person, I just wanted a few photos.

A few photos, a hen do arranged by the bride for you and family, and the flowers.

You wanted these things, and you didn't have to demand them, but you could have asked nicely. Then your daughter wouldn't be subject to this guessing game.

Not everybody will have a photo with just their parents (you mention splitting from your partner - is he her father?), certainly not necessarily a staged one of each parent individually. You could have asked.

A hen do organised by the bride for just family is definitely an odd expectation, I'm afraid. It would have been far simpler for you to organise it.

For the flowers - again, lots of variation in norms here. I got married last year and no wedding site etc suggested corsages for mums. Though my sister made my flowers and did them anyway. No idea where she got the idea from, as the mums didn't have them at her own wedding.

As for the dogsbody comments - to be honest, it sounds like you did the normal amount of chipping in as was traditional for parental involvement in a wedding. Not that I'm sure it wasn't lovely and appreciated, but it's fairly normal for people directly related to the couple to give a hand.

It's all very well to be 'not demanding', but if you don't even ask nicely, then you set yourself up for a fall.

Going against the grain here. And I don't know why people are being so harsh. You're the bride's mother FGS, not some irrelevant nobody just going to a wedding of a work colleague

@Lilygreen42 YANBU, and I think you have every right to feel upset and low about it. And I am sorry you've had a shit year.

However, there is nothing you can do about it now.

Can you and your DD get your wedding attire back out, and both put it on, and get take a few pics with the camera on the self timer, with a nice backdrop like the dining room/living room curtain?

We did something similar. When our DC were Christened in the 1990s, they scowled all the way through their Christenings - (did the 2 together as close in age,) and they cried too, so the pics taken at the Christening/on the Christening day were not great.

So before we made the Christening album, we took a few more pics at home, (the following week,) of just them, me and them and DH, and then the two of them with their grandparents, all with our 'Christening' outfits on... and got them developed too (pre digital!)

Then we got the two lots together and it made a nice album. The official ones in the Church, and the laid back casual ones at home. The smiley, cute, nice ones outnumbered the scowly ones LOL!

Good luck. As I say, just both put your wedding attire on, and recreate the day for an hour or so and take some pics. All the best

Your daughters wedding day is about her and her husband, nobody else.
Unfortunately.

I can understand why you’re hurt but of course it’s unreasonable.

It sounds like at the time you had a very stressful year and were perhaps in a bit of a "bubble" at your daughters wedding with your mind on lots of other stressful things.

Now, you are looking back and thinking why didn't I notice this or suggest this and as mother of the bride why was I excluded from that? Weddings can be extremely stressful and I remember not enjoying my huge and expensive wedding one bit because I was more worried about other people. Your daughter probably would have had so much on her mind she wouldn't have noticed the photographer leaving you out. It doesn't sound like it was done deliberately.

I would draw a line under it and put it out of your head. Don't jeapordise your relationship with your daughter by voicing your feelings. It won't do any good and life is too short to dwell.

I agree with this. I also think when you’ve had a tough year, as many of us have experienced, your perspective does go off a bit. You haven’t the energy to focus on what is usually important to you so you drop it, but then miss out because what matters to you, doesn’t matter to other people.

Is there anyone independent you can talk to about this - perhaps a professional- to work through how you are feeling, and where those feelings truly come from? Do you have any regrets maybe about not marrying yourself??

I’m also a bit twitchy about the photographer up thread who suggested they only take random, candid shots and groups they are asked to. My own wedding day was such a blur, I could quite easily have forgotten who We had had photos with and not. I’m now extremely grateful our photographer had the sense to prompt us.

Sadly some of our guests have since died and those photos are important memories for us.

YABU.

You were there, you saw your daughter get married - my DM died 3 months before my wedding!

If you wanted specific photos on the day, you should have ensured they were taken (by the photographer or friend or family)

If you wanted a corsage to tie in with the bouquet and buttonholes - why didn't you mention it to your daughter prior to the day?

Your daughter was busy planning her wedding and obviously didn't have time to organise a separate hen do to involve you - why didn't you organise it as a treat for her? My cousin did this for me, her and my auntie as my auntie is deaf and struggles to be involved in large groups. It was a lovely break from wedding planning, and if it had been left to me, probably wouldn't have happened!

It was your daughter's wedding day, about her and her husband. Were you interested in the planning, did you offer to help her at any time? Maybe her in laws did and that's why you feel so left out

Something similar happened at my wedding. But it was the photographers fault no anyone else's. There was only one picture of my brothers and they were ushers but got completely missed out. They are missing from all the pictures apart form one portrait type pic taken at the reception afterwards of just them and me. We had specifically told the photographer who everyone was, but on the day he turned up late and so the pics of the grooms party that were meant to be done outside the church aren't there. There is one pic of my husband and best man taken inside and that's it! Don't blame your daughter it probably isnt her fault.

The photographer probably had a list of group shots to take, as directed by the couple (who were employing them). No one else should be insisting on particular pictures they want for themselves- it’s the bride and grooms choice.

We gave a list to our photographer which didn’t include a photo of me and my mum on our own.

Yabu, stop feeling sorry for yourself. This was your DD day, not yours. You only just looked through the wedding photos months after the wedding, and now you have a problem with them?

Sounds like you are going through a tough time with everything else and when you have a low mood it can impact on other areas of your life that wouldn’t normally bother you.

In your defence, any wedding photographer I have come across including my own have met the couple beforehand and get them to write a list of photos they want so it all goes like clockwork on the day. This saved us a load of hastle and I’m surprised your DD didn’t consider one of you two as important. However as everyone else has said, it was HER wedding so ultimately up to her.

I would be mortified if I thought my DM had complained to the photographer, I do think that was a bad move to make but there’s no need for your DD to find out.

I would personally move on and realise what’s done is done. Whatever you do, DO NOT mention any of this to your DD. There’s nothing she can do to make you feel any better and it would be selfish on your part

I'm not a demanding person, I just wanted a few photos.

Which is fine but that didn't happen and in the kindest possible way dwelling on it a year later is not going to change things. You have years ahead of you to take pictures with your daughter at other events and occasions try to remember that and like I said previously his mother doesn't have that luxury.

Ummm it wasn’t your wedding!

You had no official role to play.

The lack of photos was an obvious oversight but something you could have requested at the time.

Further, it isn’t your daughters job to organise her own hen.

You weren’t invited to the hen. She merely said she would take you out to placate you and then obviously she didn’t. The moment has now past.

It may hurt, but it was likely a very busy time for your daughter and was not intended as a personal slight.

Further, I find it utterly bizarre when older family members come out for the pub crawl.

The bride feels obligated to sit with them all night and it’s just awkward and sad for them.

You had no role to play. It’s sad, but you had your wedding already.

Maybe your daughter feels disappointed that you didn't arrange a hen/get photos taken etc. It's very plausible that the groom's dad called the photographer over for their photos, and you should have perhaps done the same.

Don't mention it now. All you'll do is taint her memories of the day and that would be selfish to do. You can't go back.

I'd arrange a girly spa day with you and your daughter and take a load of snaps there. Instead of being sad about something that's gone, you might as well try and make new memories that are special to you and her.