Disgusting wedding photos

[inthelight44]

Just received my wedding photos and I’m so upset. The composition of the pictures is lovely - the backgrounds are beautiful and the colours are nice, but all the photographs have been taken from low down, giving me an awful double chin. There are two photos I like - both taken from a normal angle, but for the rest, the photographer crouched down and I have about 5 chins and my hair looked so flat.

I know it’s silly and there’s nothing I can do now, but why didn’t the photographer think of this? So upset.

I had a huge issue with my hair on my Wedding Day. So the photographer took photos in sepia and black and white as well as colour so you couldn't see the problem. Photographers are supposed to make you look and feel fantastic. If yours didn't then they haven't done their job properly.

My suggestion would be to either contact the photographer or to join a Facebook group called ‘FREE photoshop edits (Original)’ and ask them to reduce your chin and give your hair volume. They are SO good there and will help you xx

And some photographers (no offence @Mischance!) are a lot more preoccupied with camera-y technicalities than thinking "does this picture look nice"?

We had a really beautiful speaker at a show once that our speaker made look like a sack of spuds.

I was exactly the same when I first saw mine, the photos were beautifully shot but I was convinced I looked awful in them. I really didn't, I was just being self-critical. Now I really like the photos and think I look lovely in them.

Talk to the photographer. Explain your disappointment with the fact that the photos are mostly "up" taken. Every photographer who photographs women should know we all look better in straight on or from above photos. Get all the photos digitally sent. And there are many, many people out there, for a modest fee, who can edit digital photos. You can get a photo to represent the "real" you and the memory of your day.

I got married 22 years ago. Our photographer came highly recommended. He called us in to the studio to talk through some concerns on our photos ….. it turns out my husband looked like his eyes were shut in every photo!!

Ah I think it’s natural that you are upset and hope guests have some good photos you can use.

our Photographer called me a week before our wedding to say he had broken his leg. Not his fault but it was too late to book anyone else.

all our photos were taken from his wheelchair and were hideous - fat legs, double chins and pin heads. We roar with laughter now but it’s taken a good few years for me to see the funny side. We did get a huge discount but that didn’t help our disappointment at the time.

I’m so sorry this has happened to you. I like the idea of asking guests to upload their photos of your wedding so perhaps this situation can be saved?

has the photographer indicated they have the ability to tweak/edit their work?

photos can be confronting when we don’t regularly have them taken of ourselves too !

I remember how I felt seeing my flowers on the day. Nothing like the photo I provided and she had swapped out the roses in the photo for native type ones. My Ideal bouquet of pastels Was strong purple and I told her they weren’t my flowers. Too late to have the bouquet replaced.

next time (DD) I will have a small sample made up prior to the wedding..

Essentially looking up someone’s nose is rarely a flattering angle for a photo! The most common flattering angle is from above looking down. Can you get a photo shoot with a trusted person after everything’s calmed down, you’re not nervous and overwhelmed due to the day itself and you can relax and enjoy some lasting and lovely images or you and your DH? Some studios do a package so it’s an experience.

Oh goodness. I don’t know what to suggest… can you complain to him that you hate the photos? He would have the tools to airbrush the photos and frankly should want to make you happy! He should do it free of charge since for some daft reason he chose to take them from that angle!…. I’m not a professional and I know not to take photos from below… I always try to take them slightly elevated so people have to look up ever-so slightly without being obvious! It’s also the reason selfies generally look cute!
When we got our pics back we realised that there wasn’t a single nice photo of us with my MIL…we had to request more and in every shot someone ruined it (generally her)… we complained and the photographer took the one pic she looked good in and photoshopped her head into the picture that me and DH liked the beat of the 2 of us…. He did it at no cost to keep us happy … because after all he should have been checking the pictures after taking them… especially someone as key to the wedding as the grooms bloody mother! You photographer should’ve checked and realised it wasn’t a good angle for you!
I hope he can salvage your pics and make you happy x

Sorry minor derail but can you please explain the issue with your hair?

this! If there had been an outbreak of food poisoning at the reception would you be telling the OP it was her fault 'surely you should have been going into the kitchen to check they were cooking everything properly?'

It's alright, I hate mine too.

We had a great photographer. I just hated how I looked.

Got let down by the make up artist and hair stylist that was booked. I didn't book them. SIL did and "forgot" to tell me both had got normal jobs due to Covid so were no longer doing hair and make up. When she finally told me (a month before the wedding when I asked about the hair and make up trials) we were still in lockdown and so it was impossible to replace them.

I am shit at make up, and hair. I wanted to wear an antique veil, couldn't because I couldn't do it myself. Bought a hair band off Amazon that looked shit.

My dress had no hoop because I bought it from eBay and had no clue I needed a hoop. So it hung weird. I left my bra on and thought you couldn't see it, you could at the back. I had put on weight in lockdown (didn't we all). I literally have not one photo up of our wedding up to the point I keep telling DH we need a redo. He thinks I looked lovely. I think I looked shit and I had wanted to look amazing as I'm not usually known for going glam.

You are not alone.

I hated mine too. Throw them in a drawer and forget about them. Come back to them in 10 years time and you'll probably think some of them are OK.

I'm sorry - but that did make me giggle!

Just to say.. as a photographer myself with 40 odd years experience and still going....
First you choose a photographer after seeing and liking their work. Usually a good photographer will bring a second shooter . To have shots at various different angles. If they are too cheap, or a friend of a friend, then sorry , you are looking for trouble. Since Digital revolutioned the world, now any fool with a passion for photography can buy a camera and call themselves a photographer. To me this smells , he wouldn't give you the rubbish shots and keep the best ones for you to see later. Sorry, your wedding is unique and you trust some one to record your memories. Hope it ends well.

OP was the photographer a professional? Shooting from low all the time doesn’t sound very professional to me.

We had an issue with our wedding photos - two years after the wedding, the photographer still hadn't sent them to us and wasn't responding to our messages. I saw she had membership with a wedding photographers guild or association and got in contact with them. They were absolutely brilliant and sorted the whole thing out. Our photos when we finally got them were lovely, but I have such feelings of stress around the whole thing that I rarely/ never look at them and don't have any of them on display.

Just to say, if your photographer belongs to a professional organisation, it might be worth following up with them if you think they really are sub-standard.

Perhaps he needed the loo and was trying to squat out the urge.

At my friends wedding the photographer was trying to take some really unflattering shots of her. She is my best friend and lets just say is large of nork and the dress was quite low. She was sitting down signing the register and the bosoms were spilling out the top and it would have been mortifying for her. I gently pulled him to one side and suggested her take some photos when she was in a more flattering pose. He did oblige but I wonder if that's the difference between a male and a female.

@Calliopespa Too much conditioning product had been used when I washed my hair the previous day so my hair was sticky and wet-looking. There wasn't enough time to rewash my hair (although my hair takes so little time to dry I think we could have looking back). My hairdresser worked with what she had and my hair looked beautiful in sepia - just not in colour!

Oh thank you! It was rude of me to ask but your post was intriguing!

Glad it was so professionally sorted .

My mother went to a co-worker's wedding. The photographer had just gotten her camera back on Thursday afternoon, did not run a roll in it to check after the repair. Then showed up Friday night to shoot the wedding.

Mom always grabbed her camera for things like this. Monday morning, mom sent her camera roll in to be processed.

Thursday the co-worker gets the call from the photographer that her camera had messed up, large-scale! The only pictures the couple had was from those amateur cameras from those that grabbed their camera and showed up at the wedding.

Yes, ask those who attended if they have pictures they are willing share with you.

Totally get it. I wasn't happy with my wedding photos either.

It's classic mumsnetitis - it's always the OP's fault. If Cinderella posted that she was upset that she couldn't go to the ball there would be someone telling her it's her fault.