Saddest Bride – bride loses wedding photos

bear with me – this post is slightly more “wordy” than you are used to seeing on this blog – but shortly, you will learn that, actually, words are all I have. I will try and whack in a few cartoons here and there to spice it up – but to be honest am not really in the “cartoony” mood. I am writing this blog post because there are a few things that I need to get off my chest:

It is of no real significance me telling you what I’m about to – it is what is it – other than that I need to get this heavy-world off my chest and husband will be very happy to come home to his much perkier wife. I have cried many (read: MANY) tears about it all and I’m ready to let it go.

If you have been following the blog for a while now – you will know that I got married in April this year – (woohoo!! LOVE ETC!) – I have been posting random snippets from our wedding preparations (DIYs, stationery crafting, flowergirl shoe painting, paper flower making etc etc) and a few blog posts from Our Big Day – (as per request, I have even added a page to indieBerries – where you can easily see all the wedding related things I have already posted). We did a lot of really fun things at our wedding – which I think the guests really loved. I have been holding off posting about it all because I have been waiting for our professional pictures.

The two hard drives with our wedding pictures on them were sent to a data retrieval company in Cape Town. The one hard drive was deemed “unsalvageable” due to the nature of the table-to-tile-floor-crash. Off the other hard drive they managed to retrieve a few pictures – some “party-shots” and some “out-take” shots – ie: those that would never have been selected to be edited for a wedding album – the kind where it looks like you’re frozen in a pig-snort. Some of these pictures have been ok – and most have become corrupted files that our photographer has managed to screen shot to send to us. Which obviously, are too low res to print.

After the people in Cape Town were unsuccessful, the hard drives were then sent to Retrieval Specialists in California. At this point, no one knew we were having problems with our photos – because I was convinced that the specialists in the USA must be able to retrieve our photos. They too were unsuccessful with retrieving anything more off the hard drives.

Yesterday I received the few random and sporadic pictures/screenshots that have been retrieved. It was the most bittersweet tease, if ever there was. I cried at seeing the few, beautiful, random and pig-snorting pictures that I’ve been so desperate to see and I cried at how spectacular our wedding album would have been. There have been surprisingly more pictures than I was expecting – but at the possibility of absolutely none – even one photo is good.

I like to think of myself as a positive person and I have tried to “stay happy” and “positive” throughout this saga. I am a visual person: I love photographs and photography and we agonised for months over choosing our wedding photographer. A few days before the wedding – I wrote a blog post about how difficult it would be for me to not photograph my own wedding – And about secretly wishing to carry my iPhone and SLR around with me on the day so that I can safely record everything for myself. My mother said she would take my phone away from me at the wedding if I attempted to carry it around with me and snap pictures –

For those un-snapped brides – who worked so hard to freaking TONE THEIR ARMS and have ended up with no pictures to show for the biggest and happiest day of their lives – Those brides who had their bridal mug-shots mugged from them. It will be a HUGE bridal movement. All devastated photo-less brides from ALL corners of the globe, will unite. If you know anyone who meets this description – please do send them this link.

We will meet bi-annually, drink ALL the wine and then not share our wedding photos.

I am going to be making pin-badges for all Mugged-Shot Bridal-members. Bridal members will wear aforementioned badges to every wedding they attend in the future. When the brides of these future weddings start telling these member-guests that they are being OBNOXIOUS with all their incessant picture taking – members will point to their shiny badges and say

You shut your mouth! You may thank me for this one day when your photographers hard drive gets zapped by their evil canine.

On the other, SUPER BRIGHT side, this will be the first time in history that a bride has an “ENTIRELY INSTAGRAMMED” wedding album! Hey! hey?!

In the next coming weeks, I want to share with you some of the fun things we did at our wedding. In the posts there may be one or two professional pictures – but the majority of pics will be scraped together from the friends and family and iPhones at our wedding. (Any friend’s who are reading this blogpost and did not see my Facebook plea – we would really love it if you could email us your pics from our wedding day – if we try to take your pictures off Facebook – they are not high quality enough for us to print).

Yes, Warren and I could have another couple shoot – or an “anniversary shoot” – we could get dressed back into our wedding gear (if it still fits) and snap ourselves again. To be fair, it’s notreally the same – we won’t ever have all our family and friends gathered together under one roof – from all over the world ever again. We won’t have that incredible, indescribable wedding-high that just makes wedding photos so alive with emotion. We won’t have the feeling of that moment of complete commitment and devotion and the breath-taking sense of putting yourself and the rest of your life in another person. And – I can guarantee you, I will never sit down and literally stitch 200 wedding invitations ever again.

For those brides who have beautiful wedding albums (I loathe you) just kidding – am totes happy for you. But tonight – sit down with your husband, take out your wedding album, a bottle of red wine and reminisce about the best day of your life. You don’t realise how precious those beautiful wedding photos are until you don’t have them.

I have heard of lots of brides who aren’t “that happy” with their wedding photos. Maybe there absolutely isn’t any way to actually really capture the huge magnitude of what you are feeling on the day of your wedding? Maybe brides look forward to their photos because they are waiting to be reminded of how completely radiant and overwhelmed with love and emotion they were feeling – and maybe the pictures they get back – although absolutely stunning to everyone, are just never going to measure up to how incredible it was in your mind. So maybe this is a blessing.

Over the years, technology will improve and photos will fade. Ironically – all the brides who request the beautiful vintage and old-school photos in a few years will have those beautiful vintage and old school photos – not because their modern photographer has worked so hard to achieve it, but because they just are. I will always remember this day as bright, as colourful, as wonderful and as completely radiant as it always was. Over all the years of time, our day will never be dulled by newer, brighter, more modern technology.

Over time, we start forgetting things – and we rely on the pictures we have to help jog our memories. I will never have those pictures to peg our day onto. For me, as time goes on –  there is no way that my memory will start shifting and my mind will inadvertently ‘start-remembering-the-day-as-the-photos-tell-me-it-was’ I will only always remember it as vibrantly beautiful and amazing as Iknow and felt it was.

I will take no photos in exchange for the most gorgeous sunshine weather and the most indescribable sunset.
I will take no photos to have both sets of our parents – alive, happy, well and celebrating with us.
I will take no photos to have my dad walk me down the aisle, I will take no photos to have that special time to get ready with my mom, I will take no photos to have a crazy-show-down-dance-off with my little big brother.
I will take no photos to have family and friends flown in from London, Melbourne, Sydney, Dubai and across the country to share the day with us.
I will take no photos to have been surrounded by our closest and most amazing friends who made our day so special.
I will take no photos to have a day that was filled with a love so palpable, tangible and real that strangers took the time to email me.
I will take no photos to have found the one person who truly completes me. One person who makes it ok, not to have wedding photos because I don’t need photos to remind me how amazing my life is, because I wake up to it every day.

I will never have the exquisite couple shot that I had envisioned (in huge black and white canvas above our bed), I will never have the huge, happy, family wedding portrait to put on our mantle-piece. I will never have the beautiful snaps of all the wedding details that I worked so hard for over a year to craft and create. I will never have the perfect pictures of me in a gorgeous white dress getting ready with my mom and my bridesmaids. I will never have the heartfelt shot walking down the aisle with my dad and him giving me away to my new husband. I will never have a beautiful wedding album to one day show our children.

All I have is the vibrant, happy memory of a day that was alive with emotion and my little heart overflowing with love