Ugly bride

[Ugliestbrideinthewholewideworl]

My wedding was a few years ago now but it still plays on my mind.

No-one told me I looked nice on my wedding day. Not my husband, not my mother (more concerned with her own appearance, and she did look wonderful), none of the guests.

Our make-up artist put pictures on her social media of my beautiful bridesmaids but not me. Our photographer didn't put up photos of us on social media, despite her doing it for every other wedding and despite us getting married at a lovely venue. I can only assume I spoiled the photos.

I know I sound so self-pitying, but AIBU to hope that maybe I'm not as ugly as I think I am? I'm trying so hard to be a positive role model for my daughters but I just cringe whenever I see myself and I think that my wedding was the start of everything going downhill.

Thanks very much

My dear girl, YABVU.

In later years, after my professional career and after raising family I served several years as a Registrar of ceremonies. I’ve married many hundreds of couples, and I can tell you quite genuinely that every bride is lovely. No one really pays much attention to silly bridesmaids messing about with their makeup and their hair, it’s not about them. It’s about you and your spouse to be.

Some of the best and most genuine weddings I ever did were with a lovely bride with a simple bouquet ( I remember one who had a bouquet of flowers from her granddad’s garden💐). Just wonderful. It’s really not all about the froth.

We’ve all got far too much time on our hands at the minute to plague ourselves with unreasonable thoughts, but please trust me, I’m the one who got to look at the couples’ faces all through the ceremony, not their guests. It was your day and you will have been absolutely splendid. Look forwards, not back, onwards and upwards! 😊

To those who said they looked bad on their wedding days - I'm sure you didn't!

My husband never compliments me. He has only done so twice in the decade we have been together. He never tells me he loves me either; i would take it personally but he doesn't tell our daughters either and I know he loves them.

I had my hen party the night before the wedding. EVERYONE turned up late. I was sat on my own for an hour and ended up paying for my own meal. I didn't mind at the time but it bothers me more now! If that's the kind of friendship I inspire it's no wonder that I have 'low' self- esteem. People have said this about me before, but i think it's more just a realistic assessment of my worth.

@EveryoneLoves09876

People are shocking!

I also never got bought one drink. I ended up asking dh to get my purse from our room so I could buy myself one! Everyone assumed it had already been bought. Dh got heaps, however.

This! Except I didn't have my purse.

Noone ever told me I looked lovely either. "Your dress is lovely" was said a few times and I endeavour to cling to the thought that that was meant to include me within the compliment, not a fall back position..."she looks awful, but I can say something good about the dress!"

But I remember how happy I was, and how my husband's eyes welled up when he saw me at the end of the aisle, and think "sod it, so what?"

I understand exactly what you mean OP. I have been there and I feel for you.

These kind of feelings aren't trivial. Whether we like it or not the way a woman looks is still important in our society. Sad but true.

So, I don't want to minimise how you feel. However, I'm now nearly 60 and when I look back on wedding pictures (ours, friends and relatives)
they just bring back memories, make me think of those couples, what they made of their lives and the history of all our relationships together. How you look matters now but it honestly and really truly doesn't matter in the great scheme of things. It has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the quality of your relationships or who you are.

Somebody loves you enough to want to spend the rest of his life with you. You love somebody. You have friends and family. These things are truly precious and beautiful. I can guarantee that there are a million other things you will enjoy from your marriage. How you looked on one day of your life will contribute nothing to that.

There is no such thing as an ugly bride, any more than there is an ugly baby.
My DH looks like a silverback gorilla with a squint. I still think he's handsome though.

Don’t worry I’m a right minger on my wedding day. I didn’t even use a photographer because I knew it would be a waste of money, and I was right, most of the snaps of us taken by attendees have me with my hillbilly goofy teeth out smiling and a hairstyle that really didn’t suit me.

I asked the hairdresser for long loose tendrils and on the day she did tight Jane Austen pinned curls at the nape.

I’ve edited a few and they’re passable enough. By a few, I mean 2.

But I remeber not being able to stop smiling on the day so I’m happy in all the photos, and that’s all that matters to me really.

That’s weird that no one said you looked nice. I can’t imagine being at a wedding where I didn’t compliment the bride. Was there anything else going on? Did everyone think you were making a massive mistake or something?

Could it be that you looked unhappy rather than poking ‘ugly’ iyswim? I’d have looked extremely unhappy if no one said I looked nice.

I think lots and lots of people don’t love their wedding photos.

How about getting some photos done on your anniversary.

I’m not fussed about wedding photos. We didn’t have any professional ones and I couldn’t tell you where the ones we have are.

my mother said - at my wedding - that it was the 1st one she'd been to where the groom outshone the bride.......

I completely understand you OP. I was devasted when i saw my photos, i dont like getting my photo taken at the best of times but i was gutted. I tried and spend so much money to try and look nice too. Its devastating. I dont have any pics of me with my child either. I wish there was an easy and quick way to improve self esteem and self image.

No one said Iooked nice on my wedding day. Noone bought me drinks, whilst hubby got loads. Nor did my pictures make it onto the photographers website either. But I knew that I felt and looked beautiful. So it doesnt matter what people haven't said or done. Try and remember the wonderful feelings you had that day and hold on to them.

That's really bad of other people, as I'm sure you looked beautiful - all happy brides radiate their own magic. As for the photos, more likely to be the photographer being unhappy with their photography than the content, same with the make up artist. Or maybe the light in some of the photos showed their work the way they wanted it. They usually want to show their best work and it doesn't have to be anything to do with the model. If you felt happy and beautiful hold on to that, don't let this spoil your memories (more meaningful than pics anyway) and sod everyone else

What is it about yourself that you don't like and is it anything you can do something about (strictly for your own self image/ confidence and not for anyone else. I had a couple of small cysts removed from my face and had a front tooth crowned because it was set back from the rest and looked darker (optical illusion dentist said but still) When l looked in the mirror all l saw was these little bumps and a wonky tooth.
l look back at my younger self now and l can hardly notice these 'flaws' and l wasn't bad looking at all. I felt so much better though when l'd had my little overhaul but as l say do it for you not for other people. I was badly bullied at secondary school (all girls) and l think it just knocked my confidence for six for a long time. Other people see the whole person remember whereas we zoom in on the bits we don't like unless we're super confident.

@Backintime4breakfast, that's awful!

op - I decided against a big wedding because I had seen a close family member have a big fancy wedding & than the marriage was a catastrophic failure
We had 6 at our registry office wedding - I had a white dress from a dress shop & a red rose my dm gave me
we had tea together in our new home with a shop bought sponge cake
Nothing wrong with having a big wedding but its one day & in the scheme of things its the rest of your life, your dh your dc & a happy family. The most beautiful woman I knew who was OTT about her relationship with her dh landed up with 2 divorces & being by herself (no judgement) I am not beautiful but I DONT CARE my dh & family love me & that is all that matters - beautiful woman age like the rest of us & as a not beautiful woman it doesn't matter to me as it does to them.
Old Joke OP! I look best after my bath when my mirror is all steamed up!! Don't judge how you look Op - take pride in caring for yourself & wearing colours/clothes that make you feel good & (except for now when all of us look like shaggy sheep dogs!) if you have money get a good hair cut & do not compare yourself to others - think about this -would you want to Melania Trump?

People are thoughtless and careless sometimes but because they are thoughtless and careless sometimes doesn’t mean you’re ugly; that’s a distortion. I think you have to be careful OP not to look for confirmation of what you’re thinking about yourself when your assumption (that no one said anything because you didn’t look nice) is very likely wildly inaccurate. I’m not dismissing your feelings but thoughts are not facts. If one person had said “you look beautiful” and your shot had appeared on the photographer’s website you might not have started to think like this but you would have had the same physical appearance just a different view of yourself; so to my mind it’s not your looks that are wrong it’s your thinking habits!

I am 53, I am plain, there’s no way round it, that’s what I am. I managed to have a major accident when I was young so I also have bad scars in the middle of my face. Nobody has ever told me I’m beautiful and I doubt I’ll get validation from others at this stage of the game but I try always to practice self acceptance; I’m not beautiful by the traditional Western measures but I am many other things (good and bad). I try to eat well and look after myself and look after my body which though not beautiful has served me well and is healthy. I bet you’re much much more than your looks too OP. I would actually think about getting some support about the way you think about yourself because it’s a tremendous waste of your time!

Maybe everyone else assumed that everyone else had already told you how beautiful you looked? As for the photos and social media stuff, please don't dwell on it - there were probably a hundred reasons why your bridal photos weren't featured and I doubt very much it was due to your appearance! Don't allow yourself to fall for the fakery of Facebook and Instagram.

You really owe it to yourself to work on your self-esteem so that you can instil a positive mental attitude in your own daughters. Tell them they are beautiful every day, tell them you are proud of them, tell them all the things your own mother should have said to you.

OP, I'm really sorry that you feel this way.

That was thoughtless of your mother, if not your husband (my husband is terrible at this too).

I'm sure you looked lovely. I've never seen an ugly bride. Now in saying that, I didn't personally feel 'nice' on my own day. Dh said once I looked lovely but he does insist now I did and that he thought he said it more on the day.

On my hen night 5 turned up, then they all left when I went to the toilet after a couple of hours. My wedding day, my hairdresser turned up late and I'm bad form , after 5 trials with my hair previously she was dragging my hair from my head, stuck some doughnut thing on the top of head which could clearly be seen, kept saying how shit my hair was and it was doing it's own thing, I ended up with a completely different hair style, which I hated, I looked like I had arrived by motor bike. She refused to do bridesmaid hair as we ran out of time. My makeup person seemed to forget how to do makeup, I ended up with so much black liner top and bottom of my eyes that my top lid ended up black and I looked like I had been beaten. One close friend told me I have looked better.

I think most of us have a tale of two and didn't feel perfect on the day. I have one wedding photo on display and it's behind something.

I just cringe whenever I see myself and I think that my wedding was the start of everything going downhill.

I hadn’t properly read this bit of your post before. Do you mean downhill re your appearance or is there something else going on here?

Do you have a trusted friend or relative in whom you could confide? Maybe ask him or her why they think nobody would have complimented you on the day? But more importantly, does your husband know that you are unhappy (you don’t have to tell him why) and is he capable of making you feel happy and loved? (Not beautiful, loved).

The wedding is just one day. Forget about it.
It you put more importance into that than your marriage then you will never be happy.

I bet you looked beautiful op, even quite plain women look amazing on their wedding day. I hate my wedding photos, I have dark hair but at the time of my wedding I was blonde, it does not look like me and the make up artist made me look like a drag queen. I rubbed most of it off but still I didn't feel like myself.

It's patronising to say, 'I'm sure you looked lovely', because we don't know you and it's simply not a given.

Ugly, however, is a horrible word to beat yourself up with. Work on your self-esteem and don't judge your worth by how attractive you are, or how many compliments your husband gives you.

You will have looked beautiful. I look bk at my pics and think wish I still looked like this now. I was 21 I'm 30 now. I get hurtful comments of husband and inlaws saying things like least kids dont have your nose etc. Its horrible people are hideous. .

Are you a kind person? Kindness starts with self compassion and been kind to yourself. Beauty is on the inside and u will have looked lovely xx

And I will also add that I used to work in a professional photo lab printing wedding photos and portraits for photographers. I honestly never looked at any of the brides and thought they looked ugly.

OP, nearly everyone at my wedding said I looked beautiful and I didn’t/ don’t believe a single one. It’s what people say to be polite.
The only guests I knew were my family (the rest were dh’s friends who I’d met maybe once or not at all for the most part). None of my family complimented me, except 2 I hadn’t seen for 10 years. Maybe everyone felt comfortable enough with you to not have to conform to convention? Maybe they felt it went without saying?
That’s my one regret about mine- that I had no one close there (I’m not someone who has friends).
My hen night was me and dd8 decorating the venue, making bouquets and then dinner in the hotel restaurant. I loved it!