to be fuming with SIL?

[CheerfulYank]

Last year we (DH's extended family) tried to get together and have a family picture taken. We could never work it out due to scheduling, so this year we started working on it in August.

A photographer in our town runs a special through today, a really good deal where she takes group photos in a local park, which is nice because the trees are all in full autumn colors.

We (DH's sister) and I find a date that works for everyone. SIL#2 (married to DH's brother) was a bit cat's bum mouth at it being outside but agreed. SIL1 and I said thataybe everyone should wear brown, white, and blue in any shade or pattern as it would coordinate, plus everyone has jeans, khakis l, etc. Everyone agrees.

There is MIL and FIL, DH and me and 2 DCs, SIL1 and husband, SIL2 and her husband (DH's brother), and their 2 DCs, and SIL3 (DH's other sister) her husband, and DD.

So we get this all arranged, send out emails with dates and times, etc. It's all settled.

On Thursday we get a snippy email from SIL2. "What day is pictures? Where are we meeting? What are we wearing again?" despite this being communicated several times. SIL1 replied with directions and a map and again said brown, blue, and white.

So this morning dawns bright and early. We get ready and go to the park, where evertone except SIL2 and BIL are wearing various casual clothing in (you guessed it, brown, blue, and white.)

BIL is wearing a black shirt. SIL2 is wearing a black long sleeved T-shirt with Harley Davidson in red letters. The two DC (9 and 7) are wearing teal and black Under Armour hooded sweatshirts.

I've seen an advanced proof of the pic and it looks ridiculous. It looks like they just wandered in to some random family's photo.

Also we broker into separate family units for pictures and they refused saying "oh we got one for the church directory, it's good enough."

I think it's completely passive aggressive of them and if they didn't want to be in it, they should have just said so.

AIBU to be upset?

It's really not that bad . Maybe it is the resolution but the black doesn't appear that dissimilar to the navy and the teal top picks up the scarf colour .

lady- I don't blame them. I hate having my photo taken, as does OH and DS.

Exactly Lady...I hate photos! But I knew it would make MIL happy so whatever.

I think it looks lovely. My in-laws would kill for a family photo like that!

I might try and get the words on her shirt photoshopped out - can't see them clearly on the screen but I guess they might look odd in a big version.

Their children look fine. They are all smiling. I really was expecting to see them three feet apart from the rest looking grumpy!

Just tell everyone you picked brown, blue, white and black as the colour scheme and didn't it work well

Just to add, I agree I would be still be annoyed with them as it wouldn't have been hard to fit in with the plan.

But, if they were trying to spoil it for whatever reason, they haven't succeeded.

You are not being unreasonable. If they had a problem with it all matching they had ample time to object. Its unlikely they realised how much they were messing up the plan. Try to forget about it.

It's not that bad, I was expecting far worse. The composition isn't great and the man in the middle (FIL) looks a bit scruffy but the one that really stands out is the guy sat on the right hand side in the white shirt. he dark shirts look almost the same colour as the shorter guy who is standing next to the lady in the leather jacket. You could easily photoshop out the logos.

Isnt the woman on the right in the foreground wearing a black jacket?

You look nice btw. You're the blonde one yes?

the bright greeny girl on the left seems to stand out worst. the balck is not so bad bu the clothes look cheap.

YANBU, fine if she felt strongly about wearing whatever she wanted but she should have said that she wanted to do that in advance. When things are done by email you'd have to be REALLY busy to be too busy to quickly reply saying 'I think we should all wear our own clothes'...sounds like she was purposefully being passive agressive to me.

The photo is lovely, but it WOULD look better if either either wearing their own clothes (to avoid the cluster of brown) or wearing the agreed colours.

I think they do stand out. The logos on the t-shirts look horrendous!

I agree, it's not the colours of the clothes that are the problem, it's the logos. Why would you choose to wear logoed tops to a photo shoot?

That is my question Trixy!

Amanda yes I'm the seated blonde. :) Thanks. I'm hoping our individual pics look nice so we can use one for a Christmas card (another oh so tacky American thing to do, I know! :o)

SIL3 (seated on the other side) is wearing dark brown, not black. The only other picture I've seen from the shoot is one of her individual family, and in the sun it's more clear that it's a chocolate color. :)

More or less skipped to the end to say that YANBU at all. My in-laws are American, and we have been given strict instructions and colour-coded polo shirts to wear for many family photographs. (Each little branch has to wear a certain colour of shirt.) To me it seems weird, but to flout this would be a slap in the face for everyone else and I would never dare.

The teal is sticking out like a sore thumb. As is the looming black to the back left.

You could photoshop the colours you know.... How will SIL react to that on the mantel?

CSI I might Photoshop out the labels but I don't know if I could bring myself to actually change the colors, as much as it bothers me. Not that they cone over often (I have a dog ) but I just don't know if I could Photoshop the colors knowing they might see it.

Logos, not labels :)

If you just darken the teal then it could be down to the original processing/printing anyway. It's not as though you'd be doing a radical colour change that would be immediately obvious to her (and what's she going to say? "Hang on, I thought our clothes clashed with the agreed color scheme a lot worse than that?")

Was looking on your profile page to find photo (found it now) and I have to say your DS looks an absolute darling!

Thank you Indigo! I can't see my pictures on the mobile site so I don't remember what's up, but he is quite a bit bigger now. Seven already! :)

That's not a bad idea Tortoise.

Blame the print quality

I wonder if she was making a point because the details (clothes, location etc) had been decided by you and your other SIL without her input. Does she feel excluded? Was there a reason why you didnt involve her at the outset; if she's prickly it might have been better than presenting your plan for her agreement?

I agree that it was a bit petty of her to agree to the colour scheme and then ignore it. However the plan was to capture a snapshot of your family, and it sounds like that's been achieved.

I don't know Millie but maybe! However it wasn't really a "show up on x and wear x" kind of thing. It was more "she has Oct 4th open and we were thinking blue, brown, and white, does that date and those colors work for everyone".

She set up the GC picture earlier this year and we didn't care.