‘Did we really look like that?’
Here’s how to avoid hating your wedding photos
When Alexandra Weinstein received the photos from her wedding in Anguilla in November 2023, she loved them all. At first. A few weeks later, after she had gone through all the photos and reflected further, she felt that something was off about the editing style, and she wasn’t happy. She felt it made her makeup look dulled, her teeth yellow and the ocean background gray.
Months after a back-and-forth with her photographer, she took to Tiktok to chronicle the experience in a series of videos, which collectively garnered millions of views. She said she asked for reedits of some photos, but when she didn’t like the updated versions, she requested the unedited, raw images. The photographer shared some, which Weinstein edited herself to better align with her vision.
Eventually, Weinstein asked for all the raw images, and the photographer quoted a price that she and her husband found unreasonable, after initially paying nearly $8,000. She posted on her Instagram story saying something like, “You shouldn’t be in the wedding industry if you’re not aiming to please a client,” Weinstein shared in a phone interview.
“And I had emailed her stating, I really hope you don’t want me to share a negative review on this situation,” said Weinstein, 30, who lives in Tampa, Florida.
“As a first-time bride, you’re going into it blind,” she said. “You don’t know the right questions to ask.”
She said she found the photographer on Instagram, they talked and she sent a Pinterest board with ideas of what she wanted.
She said that since posting her videos, she has received messages from other women who had similar experiences with their wedding photographs. Weinstein’s rumored photographer did not respond to requests for comment.
As is tradition on social media, wedding photographers, brides-to-be and digital onlookers weighed in on what has come to be known as the “Sepia Bride” story, named for how some users described the golden-toned images shown in the videos. Some were team photographer, saying that it appeared the results matched the photographer’s style. Some took issue with Weinstein’s decision to share the experience online.
Others sympathized with her, arguing that for a wedding, a photographer should do whatever it takes to make the client happy. The conversation spilled over from Tiktok onto Reddit, Threads and other platforms (and, along the way, even sparked spinoff discourse about the pronunciation of “sepia”).
The discussions left some people wondering: How can you make sure you love your wedding photos?
We interviewed several photographers who shared advice on what to do if you have concerns about your photos and how to hire the right photographer for your taste and style.
“The secret to great wedding photography is the same as the secret to great marriages, which is: Communicate, and over-communicate, and then communicate again, just to be sure,” said Kayla Lang, a photographer and videographer in West Lafayette, Indiana, who runs the Lang Co. with her husband, Mike Lang.
In a phone interview, she said there are variables a photographer can’t control, like the weather conditions, but often, an editing concern — like if
fields of ‘Coral Charm’ peonies and bunches of golden celebration roses. Larkin describes her work with couples as an educational sensory-based process. “We’re encouraging them to think back about what flowers might be nostalgic for them,” she said.
Annaliese Danckers, a 29year-old Montessori teacher in Longmont, Colorado, reached out to Skiba to source and design the florals for her September 2023 wedding.
“Going with a local farmer was a no-brainer for us,” said Danckers, whose bouquet included sunflowers, dahlias and amaranth.
“Being able to work one on one, knowing the care that went into growing and arranging every bouquet, and using our purchasing power to make a little difference in how the wedding industry makes money were all part of our choice.”
When using local flowers, couples should keep in mind that they are limited to what’s available in season and in their communities. If you are marrying in the winter in a region where flowers aren’t blooming, there are still options.
Your florist can design arrangements using branches from local apple and cherry trees, for example, or anemones or ranunculuses grown in hoop houses, Stewart said. Some flower farmers, like Heather Henson of Boreal Blooms in Cold Lake, Alberta, make dried flower arrangements for winter weddings.
Local flowers often cost about the same as imports for consumers, depending on type, location and other factors. But all the purchase money goes back into the community rather than being dispersed among various businesses in the international supply chain. “That’s going to farmers I’ve met in person,” Stewart said.
Imported flowers tend to leave a bigger carbon footprint, since they are often transported thousands of miles in refrigerated airplane holds, said Becky Feasby, a horticultural therapist based in Calgary, Alberta, and the Canadian ambassador for the Slow Flowers network.
Local, small-scale growers are more likely to use environmentally friendly practices, added Feasby, who is working on her master’s degree in sustainability at Harvard with a focus on floriculture.
The use of pesticides, which can be harmful to people and animals, is less prevalent among local flower farms compared with international growers, said Skiba, whose farm does not use pesticides.
Jose Suarez, director of the Climate and Environmental Health Research Program at the University of California, San Diego, has studied the impact of chronic exposure to pesticides on children living and working on flower farms in Ecuador. In one of his studies, many of those children had poorer neurobehavioral development and mental health issues after a period of heightened pesticide use, he said.
Pesticides may prevent blemishes on flowers and preservatives may promote longevity, Skiba said, but imperfection can be beautiful, too.
“What is imperfect,” she said, “tells us a story.”