Disgusting wedding photos

I really feel for you. I hate my wedding photos from 6 months ago, too. Our photographer broke her foot 2 days before the wedding and sent another (professional) photographer in her place. Couldn't be helped but the replacement, although v nice on the day, really didn't do a good job at all. Unflattering angles, horrible blueish filter on outdoor ones, and the couple pics outside are Godawful. Our original photographer was mortified and spent ages trying to edit them - a few are now OK but we are intending to put our outfits on again around our first anniversary and try to get a few half decent ones of the two of us.

My fave pictures are the ones from friends and as pp said, as time passes I hate some of the ones of me a bit less. No real advice, just a hug from me! X

Sue him for not airbrushing the photos? I don't think she'd get very far with that, her dh obviously has more commonsense.

Ask the photographer. They might have lots more.

Also if you do hate them that much. Get them redone. A friend of mine did,

Your photographer sounds dreadful op

you shouldn’t have to pay them

My photos were like this, it still makes me upset and furious. The photographer did my brother's wedding and made everyone look like a supermodel. At our wedding she made us look like orcs. All photos from below, she made me stand side on and tried to make my dress behave as though it had a train (it didn’t), the most spectacular historic setting and all photos close up with zero landscape, photos of my family group actually squint and always with at least one person with their eyes closed or not looking at the camera. She put some awful filter over everything too so that the colours were completely wrong and looked dreadful. I was devastated, and I'm still bitter about it! I look massive and awful in every picture she took. Thankfully my sister in law was taking pictures on her phone and friends also took snaps that were beautiful - if it wasn't for those, I'd have believed I looked like a fat sweaty drag queen. I feel for you, OP 😔

I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago and I noticed this about the photographer. Camera low and I knew that might prove a little worrying for the bride who likes to be photographed from above as she knows about composition. All I can say is hopefully others took some photos too. I was initially so upset after my own wedding as there seemed to be no nice pictures but there were a couple I liked and frankly it’s all about the memories.

Great advice ❤️

Was going to say this 😂

Remember thinking I looked horrible and now I look back and wonder why I was complaining!

Social media has really killed our self image and created a wide gap between expectation and reality.

1. If you really don't like the photos, just put them away, you'll get them back out in 30 years and feel differently. Hopefully you've been able to capture the feel of the day and your most important guests.

1. Organise another photo shoot just for you and your husband, with a different photographer. Get dressed back up in the wedding outfits if you want - or whatever is comfortable and makes you feel good. The important thing is to have pictures of you that represent you newly married. Is there a specific motivation e.g. putting them on social media, printing them out for your home etc? Tailor it for that.

Note for future brides: Always book a pre-wedding shoot with your photographer. If you can, before paying the full deposit. It means you can get comfortable with them, understand what poses work and don't before the stress of the wedding day and give constructive feedback. You don't have do anything with the photos if you don't want to.

Hi OP.

I'm so sorry you don't like your wedding photos. Although the important thing is that you have a great marriage and enjoyed the day itself, it's still upsetting when you've paid a professional to take photos of you at a once in a lifetime occasion and they don't deliver.

First of all, I would email the photographer and explain that you are unhappy with the angle they used to take the pictures they have sent you, and ask whether there are any other pictures they took which weren't taken from this angle and didn't make it into the selection they sent you.

If that doesn't help at all, and these pictures are clearly not what you were expecting given the photographer's other work that you saw when deciding who to go with, ask them if there's anything they can do to make it right. Realistically you would be looking for a partial refund or a freebie photo shoot where you and your husband put your wedding outfits back on and have another go.

Alternatively you might prefer to try and have a photo shoot with a different photographer.

Our wedding photographer was having an off day and didn't get many decent shots of me and my husband. It wasn't a total bust because we got some nice pictures of the ceremony and our guests at the reception, but the couple photos were disappointing.

We left it until the following summer and then decided we still felt disappointed about it so we found another photographer. My husband and I both took a random Monday off work, I got my hair and makeup done again and we had a lovely relaxed photoshoot just the two of us.

Went to wedding in May that was practically run by the photographers... they were there all day, telling people to do different things, wandering round taking informal shots as well as an hour of "brides family", "grooms second cousins twice removed" etc... and the pictures are meh... so so. 4 or 5 of them are lovely - the rest are just run of the mill, some truly awful.
Was really intrusive, never felt you could relax. Not sure any wedding pictures are loved by the people in them though, seems a common complaint.

I was going to say this.

Not to take away from your upset now, but a sliver of light is that in 10-20 years, you'll look at the photos and think how lovely you looked.

Nothing like the wear and tear of age to reconcile you with your younger face.

But yes, speak to them about your upset and see if there are any other photos they have.

Our photos weren't great either, more from the point of view people were chopped off, others obscured by taller people in front - not photographers fault, but you'd have thought he'd have realised, etc. My Auntie had a decent camera and he stopped her from taking photos, frustratingly what she managed to take were far better. Now it doesn't matter, we've got one favourite in our lounge and gave a copy to our parents. Someone took a photo of us and our parents together, and we all have a copy of that as well.

I'm sure your new husband thinks you look lovely. However, as others have said, it might be worth asking if there are any others. Whatever, don't let it detract from your lovely day.

She might have done… her husband might have been the one to enter into the contract with the photographer. You can’t sue someone for taking bad pictures if you’re not the one who engaged and paid for their services in the first place.

There are a lot of people out there masquerading as photographers who are just amateurs. Did you not check the photographers portfolio before you signed them up OP? If you did and there were no photographs in the portfolio like that then I would be questioning them why yours are like that.

Sorry for the disappoint op. 😔
I think many of these posts make good points: you ARE probably being hard on yourself, you should ask if he has others you can look at, and finally, if not, the under chin shot is such a basic error that if he hasn’t taken others, I think it’s reasonable to get your hair done etc and have some more formal ones of you and DH taken ( no charge!) . You can play about with lighting etc and get something lovely. That’s what I’d be asking for. You only need one or two decent ones that you can work in with the group shots and perhaps some nice candid ones taken by guests and that will give you a satisfactory record of the day.

If it’s any comfort, lots of brides don’t like their wedding photos. My friend said she had the most blissful day then when the photos came back it half destroyed her happy memories as she’d imagined she was wafting round looking far more beautiful, that the venue, flowers etc were far more splendid and she felt the photos just “killed” those memories by looking very drab and ordinary. Sometimes photos don’t capture things.

I hated all of mine at the time - but years later I look and think how lovely I looked! I think you're just being critical of yourself.

Oh OP I do understand, I felt exactly the same about my wedding photos and there is only one the photographer took that I like.

I framed that one and put it on display in our house and truthfully it hasn't bothered me since as I have a nice photo of us on our wedding day to display.

But definitely ask if the photographer has other, unedited photos he could share with you from the day.

I’m sure they’re not as bad as you think.

At my wedding last year, the photos were taken by a family friend on an I-phone, and they were absolutely lovely , and ‘real’. My first wedding, 30 years ago, were taken by a professional; the new ones were much better!
Just look at it as a record of the day, as it was. Photos of oneself always make you look at the bits that no one else even noticed.

Oh but this poster would have been so “on it” she can’t contain her frustration that everyone isn’t as all over everything as her. 🙄 Too bad for the op’s distress; the really salient bit is this poster’s magnificent ability to predict and address. Are we not all impressed?!
You are right: it’s a particular Mn species.

I did for my wedding. The photos he showed me were great. But I think they were of a family friend who he cared about and made an effort to get the photos perfect and edit them all. Mine didn’t look like they’d been edited at all. Also the bride in his portfolio was pretty and slim, so she looked naturally good - it didn’t occur to me that I needed to see photos where he’d made a fat unattractive person look good. It’s easy to take good photos of a beautiful person, it’s much harder to make an average person look good!

Ask your guests to share their photos of the day - there might be some lovely informal pictures. I got married pre- the age of everyone having phones with good cameras, but I gave out some disposable cameras to guests and collected them at the end of the day and there were some great pictures!

Did your look at their previous work or discuss the style you wanted before the wedding? Any decent professional photographer would've discussed what you wanted.

Oh I remember feeling this way about some of my wedding pictures, OP. I sympathize, it is terrible to feel like the pictures from one of the most important days of your life aren’t flattering. They aren’t as bad as I thought they were when I first saw them, but even today when Iook I think they make me look fatter than I am. I should have twigged when, at the beginning of the day, the photographer had said they wanted the pics to be ‘all about curves’ (I’m not really a curvy figure, more straight and narrow). Boy did they ever manage to find some curves in those photos. :(

I have come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of photographers: ones who are primarily concerned with the technical composition and light of their shots, and ones who are primarily concerned with making their subjects look great. I know one photographer in particular who is all about the former, but their subjects never look their best and they don’t even seem to notice!

If it were me then I'd assume that if they were taking them from that angle then it was because they were getting good shots that way....and as the photographer they know best.