Anyone out there look bad in their own wedding pics?

I was married last valentines day and my mom paid a photographer to take our pictures for her wedding gift to me.

I just received them and I look absolutely terrible!! Somehow every picture taken I look like a monster and so does my baby girl! How can you make a baby look bad??

He airbrushed us soo much that we look as pale as ghosts.

Now that I'm stuck w/ these terrible pics I'm looking for comfort in other people...please tell me I'm not alone. I wanna cry.

Haha - yep.

First of all, the day before the wedding, I went to pick up my dress from getting alterations - I tried it on and it wouldn't zip up - the chest had been too big, so they put cups in to make it a little more snug, and so when I tried it on, it wouldn't zip up with the cups, so we had to rip them out and then the dress was too big and kept falling down - and in the pictures, it's really really low all of the time or I'm pulling it up in the pictures.

The ring. My husband didn't give me an engagement ring or a wedding ring (I don't know why, he just never did he's kinda a moron like that, and it's been 5 years and I still havn't received either, but anyways, back to my point here), I went to Walmart and purchased a cz ring for $8, to wear for the ceremony, and when we went to check the ring, the center cz stone was missing out of it, and it was a pretty substantial sized cz - so there was no center stone in all of the pictures, like the hand pictures and boquet pictures, just this huge empty black gap. Yep yep. :)

My hair - my hair appointment was running 2 hours late because there was another wedding party at the salon who was running 2 hours late, and so I had brought this picture of how I wanted my hair to look (a really pretty updo with the hair all intricately looped, it was beautiful in the picture). Anyways, the gal that did my hair pulled it up into a pony tail, scrunched it up against the back of my head and stuck hairpins in it and then left 2 tentacle-looking pieces of hair hanging down in front of my face - it looked NOTHING like the pictures - NOTHING! It looked like the way I put my hair up when I'm ready to go out and mow the lawn! Then I had a hairpiece that had a white wire band in back that was supposed to go UNDER your hair so that you couldn't see it - well she set it ON TOP of my hair with the white band visible for all to see. The whole thing took her like 5 minutes to do. I was so mad that I cried.

Makeup. I was supposed to have my makeup done at the same salon, but by this point, we were running nearly 2 1/2 hours late, so I had to do my makeup in the mall bathroom and I only had like 5 minutes to do it, so it looked awful.

Between my hair and my makeup, I pretty much looked like I was ready to go out and mow the lawn in a big fluffy white dress that I had to keep pulling up.

So then we got to the church adn we were in such a hurry that I FORGOT MY VAIL in the church basement and by this time my awful hairdo was all falling out and frizzy because the fool that did my hair didn't even HAIRSPRAY it!

Then, after the ceremony, we went to bustle my train and the bustling hooks had fallen off - oh brother! So in all of the pictures, my train was all dirty from people stepping on it (it was a 6 foot long train), and from it being dragged everywhere).

Then, at the reception, as I was about to take a bite out of my BBQ beef sandwich, all of the meat fell out of my sandwich and down the front of my dress.... so all of the reception pictures had my awful hair and makeup, my fake ring with the big fake stone missing out of it, my dirty and torn train and my dress full of bbq sauce.

It was a bad day - and that's only what went wrong with my appearance - everything else went wrong too - lol.

Needless to say, we didn't order any pictures because they were all absolutely AWFUL!


I'm not joking either - this is 110% true!

I am so sorry that this happened to you. Luckily this is not something that happen to me - although I don't think I look good in any pictures; but I know it's devestating because it's not like you can go back and do the day over again.
This happened to one of my friends. She paid a fortune for photography. She was so excited to see the pictures - when she finally saw them she hated almost all of them. It's been nearly a year and she still hasn't order the album or the prints that was included in the photography package. She was pretty upset...
Maybe you could ask the photographer if you can see the originals. Maybe he just airbrushed or photo shopped them to much...it is very possible. I would ask for the originals.
I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. I am sure that it looks a lot better than you think though...

EDIT: Do you have any pictures that you can post? I am sure you think you look a lot worse than you do.

I would asked the photographer if he kept the originals. Tell him you are not happy with all the air brushing and you would like to view the originals. Most photographers don't want a bad reputation. So I would call him up and voice your concern. When I first got my wedding pictures I was slightly disappointed. I don't know what I was expecting, but as much as I wanted them to they couldn't make me look like someone I wasn't. After looking at them and putting some in frames, the ones I thought I like the least are now my favorite. And the ones I think are ugly some people love. I would still call him and see if you can look at the non-airbrushed ones. After all you want them to look like you...and I am sure you baby is a beautiful baby girl.
Congratulations on everything!

I worry about that too (I'm getting married next year). Everyone's always telling me not to cut corners with the photographer, but expensive doesn't always equal amazing. My cousin got married two years ago and had a 5 diamond resort photographer do her wedding photos. The best shot he got was of her cougar grandmother's ***! If it hadn't been for her fiance's aunt, Sherri Belafonte, and myself (despite the fact I was acting as bridesmaid) she would have had no wedding photos.

You should contact the photographer and tell him or her that you are not happy with the pictures. Meet with them and see what can be done about them. If it's a matter of airbrushing and editing, they may be able to go back and fix them more to your liking.

I just took picutres for my friend's wedding, and I also gave her the originals so that she can edit and do whatever she wants with them.

There's a post wedding photo shoot called "Trash the Dress".
Research it on google, and make good use of you wedding dress one more time.
I'm sure that you mom didn't know the photographer was going to mess up your picture so badly (I hope), and I'm very sorry that your memories of that day are spoiled by someone's ineptitude.
Take comfort in the knowledge that you are married to the second most wonderful man in the world (J/K! I just think MY man's the best) ;) and no one can take THAT away from you.
But, yeah.... Look into that "TTD" (google and youtube) and see if you can do that.

Is it just the skintone or more? Maybe he can photoshop those and give you a more natural skin tone? I remember seeing a friend's pics that were all incredibly dark and another who didn't even have a wedding dance photo!

Don't feel bad. I look horrible in any picture closeup but look decent from chest up! So I've decided to just tell the photographer to only take pictures at least five to seven feet away.

Just look for solutions right now. They're probably not half as bad as you think. Put them away for a bit and then look at them again. If they're not acceptable (lighting, etc) then tell the guy and have him photoshop it all for you or get it on disc and try to play around yourself. Make some artistic with pink hues or all blues and just make a gorgeous scrapbook.

All the best :)

I agree with another poster who said that we might just be hyper-critical of how we look. There were several of my wedding photos that I didn't think I looked good in (not the photographer's fault--I thought I was squinting or my tummy was bulging, or my dress wasn't laying right). But everybody who has seen the pictures said how good they are, and how beautiful and happy my husband and I look in them. Even my husband, who is not a vain man, doesn't think he looks good in many of the pictures ("my hair needs to be combed", "I'm not standing up straight") that no one else, including me, sees a flaw in. So, maybe have other people look at the photos and see if their opinion is the same as yours or not.

Did your photography package include the negatives, or a CD of the original untouched images? If so, take them to a better photographer and have him/her work on them.

If not, tell the photographer you aren't pleased with them, and ask to see the originals.

Get the originals - don't stand for it, especially when the photographer was paid. And what is the deal with them being sent so late?? How unprofessional.

Take heart in the fact that you don't really need to see your wedding pics every day. Stick them in an album and be done with them!

I hate the way I look in most photos. I think we are all our harshest critics.

The quality of the photos are fine... I just don't think I looked my best. I look much better now. Oh well. We seldom look at our photos anyway

What does everyone else think of the photos? Like, your husband and your mum? Because maybe you are over reacting - brides always expect themselves to look fabulous, and maybe they have just not come out as expected?

Why were you airbrushed? Did you ask for that, or was that done off the photographer's back? Because the photographer should still have the originals and if you don't like them, you shouldnt have to pay for them. Contact the photographer (or get ure mum to do it) and tell her you are not happy and would like to see the originals to maybe choose new ones from the total?

girl out of like 200 wedding pictures there was probably about 7 i liked...

my photographer wasn't bad, i am just very particular about my pictures!!

i know how you feel, my heart sank when i saw them. i wish i'd lost 5 lbs, i wish i'd worn a different nail polish, blah blah blah. and some were just taken from very poor angles!! lol

i know how you feel, but out of ALL your pictures, there has to be at least a few you like. use those to share w/ friends and family and put up around the house.

thats what we did; i just said 'there were so many pictures, we chose our favorites to share with you'... and people will probably thank you for the 'highlights' it can get boring looking through 85+ wedding photos...

good luck! and be happy!! :)