'AITA if I refuse to delete the photos of my mum from my wedding day?' UPDATED
"AITA if I refuse to delete the photos of my mum from my wedding day?"
My mum is vehemently against being in any photo. I think the last willing photo of her is from the 90s when I was a baby. The weird bit is that she's a really beautiful woman but she gets so self conscious about being in a photo. There have been huge arguments about this from various family members but she's never swayed.
Our family has zero Christmas, holiday or birthday photos. No pictures from events or parties, because my mum won't be in the same room as a camera on the off chance it snaps her.
For my wedding, she promised she'd be cool about it. But she did buy a massive (and I mean massive) hat that covered half her face and all of it if she looked down. This was clearly her safety net.
Except my photographers were onto her, and a few full face photos have made it through into the album. This is probably the only photos I have of my mum in the last 30 years. She looks stunning in all of them.
Anyway, I get the link to the album and warn her she's in some photos. She doesn't want the link and doesn't want me to give the link out to anyone else. I try and show her a few shots where she's in them but you can't really see her face to show her how nice she looks, but it makes things worse.
Without her knowing, my husband obviously sends the link to his family, I send it to my bridesmaids and just give my family the highlights for my mum. Well, that wasn't enough, and my brothers just told me that she's been sobbing all day knowing these photos exist and she wants them deleted. She been sat crying all day and has been miserable about this since I told her I'd gotten the photos.
What do I do? I don't want her to be sad, but it feels like she's being totally unreasonable and honestly, dramatic. What can I say to make it better or to make her see reason? Do I just delete every photo that she's in? I cant take them off the link as it's just a hidden page on the photographers website.
EDIT:
I just went to see my brothers exact text, it was: "Could you please not include a close up of mum in your wedding album? She's really sad and has been crying all day." Anyone who knows the photographers website can get to our album - and there is ONE close up of her face out of 1000 photos.
I think temptation has won over and she's gone to check out the pictures herself. If I'm right, I have no control over that website and couldn't delete the photo even if I wanted to unless I reached out to the photographers. But that's crazy and if its the case I really really don't want to do that.
Here's what top commenters had to say about about this one:
NeuroscienceNerd said:
Just email your photographer and have her remove those few pics from the gallery. You can save the digital files for yourself.
JuliaX1984 said:
Run a background check and find out what kind of warrant is out for her that she's running from.
Organic2003 said:
Don’t show those photos to anyone again. Give her the privacy she needs. Tell her no one will see them. They are locked up until she dies. But you treasure those photos!!!! I do, as you do, seem to wonder why she is afraid of photographs.
boredathome1962 said:
NTA a bit...This is seriously odd. In a movie she would be on a witness protection program, or a secret assassin. Assuming it's not that then this is a phobia, and it shouldn't control anyone's life but her own.
What does she do when she goes outside? My nearest quite small supermarket has 66 CCTV cameras inside, including 2 on every till. (I asked one of the store guys 'cos it seemed a lot.
He told me every part of every shelf is covered at least once.) I'm sorry for your mum, this fear or self loathing must be horrible for her too, but she needs help, not to have herself hidden from all family occasions. But for now, remove the photos, but don't delete them.
TylerNadel said:
NTA. It's her responsibility to get her issues addressed. You don't have to delete valuable moments from your life to appease her. I could be more understanding if she has been in an accident that caused some disfigurement she can't get fixed or she had recently gained/lost a lot of weight due to stress/trauma...This though has been 30 years of her expecting others to bend to her and losing out on memories.
ButterflySuper2967 said:
We’re all about respecting boundaries, right. If Mum says don’t photograph me, that’s her boundary and I don’t get why you would try so hard to encroach on that. I hate being in photos. I don’t like them and my family know I don’t. It took me a while to get my photographer husband to accept that, but he has.
No one NEEDS a photo, and those of us who don’t want to be photographed should be left alone. I will admit at some weddings I have stood for photos but only because it would cause more distress and embarrassment to continually refuse than to just stand in the group. Still hate it though. YWBTA.
DisAnAccount said:
YTA for (before the edits) keeping the photos of her in the official album and sharing those photos to others when you knew the distress it would cause her. I understand wanting to have photos of your mother to keep for yourself but sharing them against her consent is extremely inconsiderate.
UPDATE:
Okay, so final update. Thank you all for your advice and it did help me understand and have more sympathy of my mum's phobia. Special thank you to those who felt the need to call me an awful daughter.
I hate the idea of my wedding album giving her anxiety. So I have emailed the photographers the situation and asked for admin rights to the Web page. I have then gone through every photo and deleted any that included my mum, including the family photos she did agree to be in prior to the wedding (for those of you who seem to think I sprung this on her).
No one will be able to see them now. Have I kept them secretly for myself? You're damn right I have, and when my mum one day isn't here they will be the only photos I have of her. I'm going to treasure them.