Wedding Photographers Share The Worst Moments They've Caught On Camera

SURPRISE!

During the portrait time with the bride and the groom, the bride reached her arms up to hug the groom, who was significantly taller. She was wearing a strapless dress. The dress stayed put, and the rest of her made a surprise appearance. I did not deliver those images.

Floralmuckboots

The Weather Won't Hold

The wedding was on a pier. The couple and the planner kept checking the radar on their phones for rain to decide if they should do the wedding on the pier, or take it inside. I looked out on the pier and said to them, "I don't know what your radar says, but those are rain clouds." They make the call to do the ceremony on the pier anyway.

About 3 minutes into the ceremony, it starts to rain. Out of nowhere, a man appears with a heart shaped wicker box. I always ask the couple if there is anything different about the wedding I should be aware of. They never said anything to me about this, so I was caught off guard. Cool. Fine. I just keep shooting. He hands the box to the bride. She opens it up, and there are two doves in there. Ok. Pretty cool. I've heard of a dove release, but had never actually seen one. But, there doves were NOT feeling it. They just sat there and were like, yeah, no, fuck this, it's the beach and it's raining. Bride looks at bird handler. Back at the birds. Shakes the box. Nothing. He motions for her to scoot them out of the box. She reaches in there and they immediately flee the box. They both fly directly into her face. I shot in burst mode, and got a pretty wild sequence of shots . One of the birds gets caught in her weave, and she shakes her head while swatting at the bird to free it.

Then the bottom falls out. Pouring rain and heavy winds. The officiant continues like nothing is happening. Zero sense of urgency. People are just getting up and heading inside. One of the family members gets up in the middle of the aisle, and starts screaming and chanting. "JUST SAY I DO! KISS!" They do, and it starts raining even harder. I backpedal down the pier as they run through the rain. The shots of them running through the rain are actually pretty beautiful.

The whole wedding was a complete mess. They ended up telling me that I was the only thing that went right on their wedding day, and that looking at my pictures made them happy, and that the pictures made the awful day look beautiful.

TouchToLose

We Know That, Rob

I filmed a guy pushing a baby carriage. The two sides of family were not fans of one another and I was filmed a nice moment where a gentleman was making baby talk to a baby in a push carriage. The baby reached for his beer bottle and the guy let the baby touch it. Well the father of the kid grabbed the beer bottle and chucked it down the field then shouted at the guy "you don't give beer to kids!" So the beer guy got a mean mug and shoved the carriage a bit. I got it all on tape from about 20 feet away. Even got a cutaway of the smashed beer bottle the guy threw.

EmptyCupMedia

A Good Deed Goes A Long Way

Maybe not the worst, but the saddest. My wife shot a wedding for a bride and her father died later that night in his sleep of a heart attack. My wife made sure to give them all the nights photos, over 1500 photos, and edited them all for her. Usually she only gives 350 to 450 photos for a wedding package. Anyways, really sad situation. Those photos meant the world to the bride and she's been a return customer for years now. Super sad for the bride though.

praisingthejoesmithy

Got there way too early since I had to do some pictures of the place and some of them pre-ceremony. Met the future husband, talked to him and his bride about what I would do. The ceremony starts and everything is going nice enough. I had to be ready all the time in case they call me or something happens so I was constantly close and scouting for them. Sometimes I would see some good moment or had some idea and I would tell them if they wanted a picture so I'd take it. At some point the couple is no longer inside so I go around to look for them. I spot them outside in the back of the place, which was a beautiful patio with decorations and all that thing. They are just close, talking side by side with heads slightly tilted towards each other and I think "Aww yeah this is going to be a great pic" and I try to come closer without them looking. I take the picture with my zoom and only then they simultaneously notice me and I notice that they have the saddest faces I've seen in a bride and groom.

I ask if everything is okay and they say yes so I let it go. Not my place I said, but when the party was almost over the groom approached me and in the middle of the conversation he says that the ceremony was so exhausting for them because they knew almost nobody there. It turns out the mother of the groom "had" to have a wedding for her son and orchestrated the whole thing without them knowing, and invited her friends and family, and then let them know that they would have to come from where they lived (which was far away) to their wedding. That was on top of the fact that the son wasn't on good terms with his mother and the bride hated her. Apparently the mother was very abusive and manipulative. The only person the groom knew was his brother who got very drunk as soon as the ceremony allowed him to, and the bride knew nobody.

Later looking at the photos I noticed that when the two were together alone they looked lovely and happy, but their warmth would slightly die when the mother was present in the picture, but that might be my confirmation bias I don't know.

I remember that the groom said "I probably know you more than I know most people at this party" and had me sit down, eat cake and drink with him and the bride and wait out the rest of the people.

I didn't send them that picture of them although I always wondered if I should have. They were very intimate and enduring something together and it was a very good picture outside the emotion.

BioregenerativeLamp

No Aunt Of Mine

There was this aunt of the bride or groom (not sure which) who wore a dress that I'm pretty sure was actually meant to be a long blouse. She got plastered at the reception and was dancing in the middle of a circle of people so I peered in between two people and snapped some photos of her. Didn't realize until I'd gotten home and pulled them up on my computer that her "dress" was bouncing up when she jumped and exposing her crotch.

This was a wedding that I shot for an event company, so the way that works is that I just turn over the raw files to the company and an editor edits them and delivers the album to the client.

I forgot to give them a heads up about the it but you'd think they would notice.

Nope.

I wound up seeing the couple's final album in the system after it had already been emailed to them, and low and behold Aunty vajayjay is in there.. and out there.

plopploptoot

Here Comes...Something

Did freelance photography for a while after I graduated high school. Got hired, along with another photographer by a company to shoot a wedding. This company instructed us to get as many candid photos as possible per the request of the client. The other photographer was female and we split up during the preparation phase and I hung out with the groom and groomsmen and she went with the bride and bridesmaids. Her session with them was largely uneventful. Mine was... less so.

It became clear that the groomsmen had been drinking for a while when I arrived and that did not stop. For the groomsmen getting ready took only a few minutes, put on tuxes, boom done. So we had a few hours to hang out while the bride got hair/makeup etc. done. The groomsmen took full advantage of this period to get, absolutely obliterated. I got a few good shots during this as the camaraderie between these guys was clear, unfortunately it was like a four way enabling session as they poured each other more shots, played ill advised drinking games, and tried to psych each other up for more of the same.

Once the time for the ceremony rolled around they could barely walk straight, and the groom was the worst off of them. I broke away from them to get my position for the ceremony and let the other photographer know what a shit show this was getting ready to be. She told me that the bride had expressed concern that the groomsmen would get too drunk before the ceremony. We both just kinda braced ourselves for what was to come.

The ceremony started and the groomsmen came up the aisle in a parade of painfully obvious inebriation. The groom stumbled and almost took a knee at one point, and almost completely ate sh*t stepping up to the little platform where they would say their vows. Then the bridesmaids came in and watching their anger and concern bloom on their faces as they took in the groomsmen standing unsteadily on the dais is hilarious in hindsight, but felt like a slow motion train wreck in the moment.

Then the bride, oh god that poor bride, entered the church and even through the veil you could tell she was vacillating between fury and sadness. She stepped up to the little platform and in the silent moment between the music fading away just before the pastor could begin speaking one of the groomsmen ripped a horrendously loud fart. The bride's face fell, half of the people in attendance started laughing while the other half let out a breathless, disgusted, gasp.

The groom barely stifled a laugh, and one of the other groomsmen turned and punched the farter in the arm. It was as if these dudes had no clue where they were or how important the event was to everyone but them apparently. The other photographer and I did our best to get shots and just do the job we were getting paid to do. It was difficult to get any close ups of the bride or groom as the bride settled on f*cking furious for her facial expression for the remainder of the ceremony and the groom was a drunken sod who could barely focus his eyes on his bride. She uttered her vows through gritted teeth and he slurred through his while slowly rocking back and forth.

The reception only spiraled out from there. The groom threw up on the floor before the cake cutting, and was ensconced somewhere. After one of the groomsmen struck out with the bridesmaids he set his sights on the other photographer. eventually our agreed upon time ran out and we got the f*ck out of there. I handed off all of my RAW files to the company that hired me and wished them luck on editing that travesty.

soldatbullfrog

Tell Him "Boy, Bye!"

I was filming a wedding ceremony for some friends this summer. The bride's stepfather was sitting in the front row. She had already warned me that he could be trouble, so I made a note of where he sat down before the ceremony started.

He sat down in the front row and promptly fell asleep. For the whole 20 minutes ceremony he slept. I was so angry on the bride's behalf, who sits on the front row and then can't stay awake for the few minutes the ceremony lasted?

I managed to avoid him in the final edit, thank god.

mytevesen

Count It On Down

Former short lived wedding photographer here, hope that still counts but my Top 5 are:

5. Capturing the 4 year old nephew of the groom as he began projectile vomiting like a fountain in the pews during the "I Do's".

4. Taking a picture of the cake being cut just as the Bride's drunk cousin stumbled into them from behind, basically body slamming into said cake.

3. Realizing during the family pictures that they were being photo bombed by two other guests having awkward sex against a tree in the background.

2. Capturing the moment as the Groom's mother (who yes hated the bride) sneezed big wet, gooey snot etc. into the Bride's hair minutes before she was to walk down the aisle.

1. The couple had fed each other the first piece of cake nicely, not smashing into each others faces. Groom distractedly went to grab from the stack of napkins for his and new Brides sticky frosting fingers. I got the moment where he had accidentally grabbed the knife, cutting his fingers and spraying the cake with blood. Turns out he still had low iron after over coming cancer and bled like crazy.

ladykevinbacon