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

Get a nice photo of your lovely family done to put out instead. You can't choose your family, but you can tell your children they look lovely

I have a few similar tales from my wedding OP. What did/would your kindest, closest friend say. Stick with that!

I can totally relate to this. My mum didnt attend my wedding i chose to not go to any dress fittings. When i did choose a dress i showed my MIL i was hopeful she would say something nice but didnt. It bothered me at the time but now i know my husband says how beautiful i looked that is enough for me.

I am sure you looked absolutely lovely

The brides I remember on their wedding days are the ones that looked the most like themselves rather than someone dressing up as what they imagine a bride needs to look like.

I remember one good friend in particular had a dress that was slightly unconventional but just so her that it was absolutely perfect. She’s probably an objectively average looking person but I thought she looked fantastic on her wedding day.

There are other weddings where my memory of the brides are just of hair extensions and fake tan... I’m sure they were told they looked beautiful on the day but honestly it was all pretty forgettable and anyway they just looked like Barbies, not real people.

Have you got any photos of the two of you or of your whole family that you’ve always loved? Where you just look really, really happy? If so, get it framed nicely and put it somewhere you’ll see it every day and use that as your main / official photo. Don’t think about the wedding anymore. If you’ve got a happy marriage that’s what really counts.

I am sure you looked beautiful, people very often don’t tell the bride as it’s taken for read. Hubby was probably too nervous to say anything, be kind to yourself.

Not sure love and happiness would be showing on my face if I was marrying someone who couldn't even say I looked nice. This is on them op not you. Self centered, thoughtless, rude bastards all of them, including the photographer and the make up artist.

This. I cannot believe the behaviour of these people! I've never been to a wedding, or even seen photos of one, where the bride wasn't showered with compliments. All brides look beautiful and I'm sure you did too. What is wrong with people? - it takes seconds to say something nice, but the words can last forever. I am very plain but on my wedding day I felt almost beautiful because others made me feel that way (it was a small wedding and I did my own make-up, which took all of five minutes!). I'm sorry to hear that your family are so lacking in something, especially your DH, that they couldn't even be bothered to make you feel special.

OP can I just point out that maybe you're a stunner in real life but not just very photogenic. I've known friends who look much better in photos than they ever do in reality and vice versa. Maybe you are very expressive and the camera doesn't easily catch your vivacity.

And agree that being 'picture perfect' doesn't necessarily make you really attractive - that's something else entirely.

i get what you're saying, but if you're relying on the validation of other people to tell you you're attractive that makes you very vulnerable. From now on tell yourself that if you like the way you look, that's enough. I used to feel similarly when looking at my wedding photos. Divorcing the fecker has helped my self-worth no end! Not saying you need a divorce, except maybe a divorce from other people's validation.

I can't comment on how you looked at your wedding, but what I can say is that you can be a positive role model for your daughters regardless.

I am what Jane Austen would have described as 'plain'. I was brought up by a mother who genuinely believed that appearances didn't matter, was denied the braces that I still need as a child because I 'wasn't that sort of girl' and had my hair cut by the same barber as my two brothers for many years. I don't wear makeup (partly eczema, partly never learned to do it well and 50ish is too late to star) and my hair matches Cruella da Ville at her finest.

My daughter (now a late teen) is confident, graceful, poised, dresses well and is expert at makeup. Not because i have been able to teach her these things directly, but I have made a conscious effort to open the doors that were explicitly or implicitly closed to me - dance classes, good hairdressers, age appropriate clothes shops, advice from those on makeup counters. I have stood behind and beside her as she has negotiated these things, supporting her.

I can't change me, and my upbringing, but I can choose and work not to let that affect my daughter. I tease her that when she gets married, she will have to choose my dress....

Aw that's awful, some people are so unthinking. Your husband seems a bit sucky but some people aren't really about words, did he look happy to see you walking down the aisle?
The only similar thing I can think of is my husbands auntie (who didn't come to our wedding despite saying she was) commenting on a picture of me and my MoH that my MoH looks beautiful. Not a word about me, not a single comment on any other picture or anything else said about it at all.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder , your husband MUST think your beautiful or he wouldn't have married you !

My wedding was 30 years ago. No-one, not my groom, father, none of the guests said that I looked lovely.
Several years later I met up with an old school friend who had been a guest at the wedding. she told me that she had shown photographs of the day to a German male friend of hers who commented on the 'stunning bride.' So some eventual affirmation!
I looked again at our wedding photographs on our 30th wedding anniversary and I was gorgeous!
Maybe no one felt the need to say at the time what was evident - that you should have known that you looked beautiful!

Nobody has ever told me I am beautiful and frankly I’d be a bit embarrassed if they did. Even on my wedding day. Your hair is nice, or my dress or sth, fine, but anything more effusive would be a bit much for me. I think most people know that about me!

I’m glad you feel cheered by what pp have said. There really is no such thing as a truly happy person on a special day looking ‘ugly’. I rocked up to the register office a good two stones overweight, sporting a crew cut and an ‘arty’ outfit that a friend remarked made me look like a ‘Lady sculptor from Hampstead’. I can’t remember what anyone said about me, or didn’t, because it was a lovely day. I’m not saying this to score points or be smug; I’m saying that it sounds like other things intruded on your wedding day, and are intruding now, that distract from the good stuff. Your husband doesn’t pay compliments or tell you he loves you - that doesn’t matter if you know you are loved. Do you?

Also I'm a lot younger than my husband and he's to some people not as aesthetically pleasing as some people.find me we've had comments about.the fact I must have got with him for money 😠(I have a wealthy family and have money myself) and he's been asked if I own a white stock when he's shown people photos of m e and my family , it's shallow, insulting & rude , beauty isn't everything looks fade but my husband is the kindest, smartest and most sincere & humble person I've ever come across and I love him more than I've loved anyone (except the children.obviously!)X just because I'm your eyes you may feel ugly is doesn't mean you are , beauty is only skin deep I'm sure your a great person x

All brides are beautiful.

They used my cousin's face as the mold to make gorilla biscuits, and even she scrubbed up ok on her wedding day.

Don't stress.

You're not alone OP. I hate most photos of myself but I don't have a single wedding photo in which I think I look pretty. One is ok I suppose - where my dress is hiding the fact I'm actually stood in a gutter - and I'm still disappointed not to have looked prettier, nearly 10 years on. I remember looking in a mirror on the day itself (slightly squiffy) and thinking I looked ok but I do take a terrible photo at the best of times.

We had a great day though so I try to focus on that and all the really personal touches that were really unique to us as a couple. My best friend still says it was the best wedding he'd ever been to.

Plus we have a great marriage, with the arrival of our second child imminent, and life is very happy. That is far more important than how I looked on one day many years ago!

I don't remember any compliments on my wedding day either and I don't display any photographs, I don't like how I looked. I know how you feel

I can’t imagine ever looking at a bride on her wedding day and thinking she looked ugly. Never. In fact just in life in general I would never look at someone and think they were ugly.

I think you are right that you need to work on your self esteem - I’m sorry people were arses to you on your wedding day though - not paying the bride a compliment is at best ignorant and at worst downright mean.

I grew up a plain older dibling of a stunningly pretty sister.

One day I said to my grandmother that it was not "fair" that I was ugly and my sister was so pretty. To this very day I always remember my grandmother looking down at me over her horn rimmed spectacles, saying:-

"Your not ugly but you are plain. That means you look ordinary. I was a plain girl and we didn't have make up then. It wasn't considered acceptable. Nowadays a plain girl can make a lot of herself with the right clothes, make up and hair style."

She went on to point out that some of the most famous Hollywood actresses of the day such as Bette Davies and Barbara Stanwyck were really quite ordinary without their make up and stunning clothes. They were not beautiful. But they knew how to make people THINK they were beautiful"

After that she pointed out "Yes your sister is very pretty but your a lot more intelligent than her. One day her beauty will fade and what will she have? But you will always have your brains. If I had to choose between intelligence and beauty I know what I would choose."

My grandmother was a very wise woman.

I've noticed a lot of wedding photographers and guests don't praise a bride who is oh so obviously good looking yet a lot of mediocre or frumpy looking brides will be surrounded in tons of endless praise - maybe it's something like that?

I think that's actually quite common. I am basically very good looking (sounds a bit boastful but everyone tells me that), and when I was a bridesmaid there was literally not a single picture of me. And at my wedding I'm not sure anyone talked to me. They just floated around smiling vaguely at me and then wrote thank you notes that I most have had so many people to talk to - I think my dad and my husband were the only people I had a conversation with!!

@Backintime4breakfast what a horrible woman to say that. Jealousy springs to mind.

I read your post, OP, and really felt for you.

I'm trying so hard to be a positive role model for my daughters but I just cringe whenever I see myself.

I'll be honest, I feel the same sometimes. My kids are so beautiful, I look like a shrivelled up old turnip in pictures next to them. But they love me. They love my wrinkly face, my saggy belly, my uninspiring middle aged self.

Everyone, without exception, has aspects of themself that are beautiful. Not everyone looks like whoever the latest celeb influencer is, of course. Not everyone has the face and figure that matches what is considered 'beautiful' at this moment in time, in this culture. But every person has something about them. A shade of their hair, a tilt in their shoulders, the look in their eyes, a stately nose, voluptuous curves, pink cheeks, cute crooked teeth, a sideways smile. There is always, always a quality in a person that is beautiful and wonderful. You'll have seen it in people you love. If you look closely you can see it in anyone. You have this too. I promise you.

You seem anxious to win the approval of others. That's understandable, but when will you decide to take charge of your life? I bet if you list five ways, right now, that you are a positive role model for your daughters, you can start to come up with some better ways of seeing this. You deserve to feel good about yourself, OP, you don't need to spend so much time putting yourself down.

I would like to suggest a chirpy self help book, that I loved: 'Finding your North Star' by Martha Beck. It's about working out what you want to do with your life, but I found it wonderful for reframing things in more positive things. And it's funny.

All the best.

You might find this article interesting OP...

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/dating-and-mating/201801/3-reasons-why-you-look-better-you-think-you-do