The wedding photos are a great little ritual. An eternal memory of one of the happiest moments in your life.
So when JeffJeffery02’s wife decides to make some alterations to these memories, he’s more than a little perturbed. The original poster (OP) gets very upset with his wife and the two are now in a big argument.
OP isn’t sure if he’s overreacting or if he’s got a point about the wedding photos. So he decided to ask the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit about his argument to find out who was being the jerk here.
And with something as precious as wedding photos at stake, this is important.
“AITA for snapping at my wife after finding out that she has cut my son out of our wedding photos?”
The two have different opinions of what the issue is.
“I’m so sorry for any mistakes as I’m on mobile.”
“My wife ‘Natalie’ and I got married very recently. She has met my 12 year old son from my former marriage and she adored and embraced him instantly.”
“Let me just say that I 100% knew for a fact that my wife loved and got along with him otherwise we wouldn’t even let this progress to the wedding.”
“Let me give you some examples of her love for him, she decorated his room when we got our new apartment, paid for 2 of his trips, gave him/still gives him allowance (besides what I give him) and always buys him a stuff. We had the wedding planning go smoothly and drama free cause her mom is a literal Saint (mom is deceased).”
“So there were no issues whatsoever, except that I found out that she had cut/edited out my son from the majority of our wedding photos. At first I was in a state of shock and really couldn’t believe it was her and thought it was the idiot photographer who did this but he told me he did this based on her wishes and made her more copies as well.”
“I couldn’t hold it and I blew up on her and asked what this was about.”
“She calmly explained that the reason she did this was because she wanted some photos to be just about us two which was bullshit because there were still family members that weren’t cut out of the photos.”
“She said I was making this a big deal and ruining the honeymoon over ‘simple adjustments’, she then proceeded to show me ‘unedited’ copies where my son’s still included but I couldn’t help but lost my temper because it felt like she was excluding him in a way.”
“The argument escalated and she wanted to call my son and ask him to show that ‘he doesn’t really care’ but I told her not to fo it and get him involved.”
“She tried to call my mother inlaw but I decided I won’t risk getting into a fight with her about it and risk the mutual respect we have. She text me saying my wife didn’t mean to exclude my son and I should know that as a bride she must’ve felt overwhelmed and so I should be easy on her.”
“I decided to cancel the rest of honeymoon reservation and just go home.”
“She hasn’t stopped crying about it saying I’m being awful to her for no reason other than for wanting some pictures for just her and I and that I keep forgetting everything she’s done for my son so far..”
OP thinks Natalie was going too far, editing OP’s son out of the wedding photos, especially when she kept other family members in the images. However, she pointed out that they still have the originals and few photos of just her and OP.
Who is at fault?
On Reddit, the users of the board judged OP for getting mad at his wife for excluding OP’s son from the photos by including one of the following in their response:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
The problem is that there isn’t quite enough information in the provided story. There’s a lot of nuance that could tip the blame toward one or the other.
The commenters disagreed between NTA and YTA, but in the end, there’s just some information missing.
“INFO: This is so confusing. Normally at a wedding, there are NUMEROUS photos of the B&G (Bride & Groom) together (just the two of them), B&G with their parents, B&G with the bridesmaids and groomsmen, B&G together with kids, B&G with extended fams…..”
“He couldn’t possibly have been in so many pictures that he needed to be cropped? Like, aren’t there a dozen or more of just the B&G?” – Unit-Healthy
“Not to mention, as OP points out, she cropped and edited his son out of pictures with multiple other family members, leaving all of the other family on the pictures and removing only his child.” – ArbitraryAngelfish
“Most of what the OP describes as affection from his new wife is literally just throwing money at the kid. It sounds like she’s buying his favor, instead of putting in actual effort to be his step parent.” – 0biterdicta
“Yeah, doesn’t feel right to make a judgement until we know how many photos he was in pre-editing and post-editing, and why weren’t the photos just taken with or without the kid originally.”
“Like, was OP insisting his kid should be in every photo and she didn’t want to hash it out at the wedding? Did the family photos he was cut out of make sense for him to be in in the first place?”
“Ex: A picture with the whole family without the kid would be shitty. Not having a few photos of the kid and the couple would be shitty. A photo where the couple is posing with just their grandparents—not necessarily something the son needs to be included in.”
“And there definitely should be some photos of the two of them alone.” – Ok_Carpet
That said, some people think that OP was right to get upset. They pointed out that Natalie was only editing out the son, and not other family members.
These commenters felt OP had every right to be upset about the situation.
“NTA”
“If she just wanted a photo of you two by yourselves, she could’ve asked for it on the wedding day. Even if she forgot or something, she didn’t have to cut your son out of the MAJORITY of photos and could’ve easily had what she wanted with just one or two photos.” – isuck001
“Exactly, like I stated some of the pictures that she edited my son out of, still had family members in them.”
“So I didn’t buy into her explanation but she insisted I was making this a big deal and that after all she’s done for my son I shouldn’t even question her love for him at this point.” – JeffJeffery02 (OP)
However, on the opposite side, some questioned why she would do this in the first place. She seemed to really like OP’s son, so cutting him out of photos feels weird.
Unless OP is leaving out information, that is.
“I am so confused. OP, can you confirm that on your wedding day, you did get some couples photographs of just you & your Bride?”
“And then your new wife requested the photographer crop out your son from the family and group photos?”
“Because if this is the case, than NTA and you’ve just found out your wife’s real emotions about your son.”
“If you insisted on having your son in every photo to the point that there are no couple photographs without him in them, than your wife’s behaviour seems understandable ( not that I agree with it, but a clear motivation ) and like it was born out of frustration at your ongoing relationship dynamic.”
“Which means you two shouldn’t have been married with such poor communication that she felt she couldn’t ask for your son not to be included in some of your couples photographs.”
“There’s also a possibility that your wife felt some type of way that this is her 1st wedding but not yours and childishly cropped out your son so she could feel like she’s the only bride you’ve ever had. People don’t spend their childhoods dreaming of being someone’s 2nd wife and if your wife is one of those ‘dreaming of my wedding day since a little girl/bridezilla’ types than this may be your answer and why she childishly never considered that such an action would be telling the world and you she doesn’t consider your son family.”
“And therefore could be why she’s acting so hurt over your actions, she selfishly never thought about how it would affect you or your son.” – excel_pager_420
“OP said in an earlier comment if she wanted photos of just the two of them she should have asked. So it sounds like there’s very little just the two of them photos out there.” – Definition_Far
“Yeah, this changes things. Seems very clear that she felt fed-up having her whole relationship and now marriage centred around OP’s kid and they need to talk about it.” – excel_pager_420
Regardless of who is at fault, there’s clearly a breakdown in communication. Either OP needs to explain to his problems to his new wife clearly, or she needs to try and get OP to understand why she needs these photos edited in this way.