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"When my partner and I decided to get married, I knew that in a lot of ways our wedding would be unorthodox \u2014 and not just because both of us are women. This ceremony was going to be a fresh twist on an old classic. But in at least one way I was deeply traditional: I was determined to look like a beautiful princess in my photos.  The author and her partner at their wedding. Looking like a beautiful princess is not something that happens to me often. And for the most part, that&amp;#039;s fine. There are things I could do to mitigate my less-than-conventionally-attractive appearance, but I don&amp;#039;t do them. I don&amp;#039;t dress to &amp;quot;flatter&amp;quot; my figure. I don&amp;#039;t wear makeup. I seldom do anything to my hair besides washing and brushing it. I have made peace with my non-magazine-cover face and body, surrounded myself with awesome people who love me for my inner beauty, and moved on. But as I&amp;#039;ve sashayed down the road to perfect self-love and enlightenment, photographs have always tripped me up. When I see pictures of myself, I can&amp;#039;t help but hone in on all the flaws: my boobs are too big, my posture is sloppy, my eyes are half-closed. Indeed, it would be impossible to prove, based on photographic evidence, that I am capable of fully opening my eyes. I look, in short, like an ordinary, imperfect person, who is happy most of the time anyway, as long as I avoid looking at pictures of myself. But wedding pictures are different. Wedding pictures are special. &amp;quot;It will be over so fast,&amp;quot; people kept reminded me, in the months leading up to the ceremony. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;ll barely even remember it. All you have are the pictures, so make sure they&amp;#039;re great!&amp;quot;  I didn&amp;#039;t consider whether it was a good idea, after a lifetime of maintaining a tenuous standoff with cultural beauty mores, to embrace them wholeheartedly \u2014 and, on top of that, pin my hopes and dreams for the day on my ability to look like a movie star in my custom-made (because off-the-rack does not tend to play well with my rack) white dress. I bought heels higher than I&amp;#039;ve ever been able to walk in. I went to Sephora and acquired actual grown-woman makeup. I experimented with my hair and jewelry. For once, I told myself, I would be pretty. And the proof would live on Facebook forever. When the photographs finally arrived, I couldn&amp;#039;t wait to peruse them. But I had hardly gotten three pictures in when my excitement began to drain away, replaced with a dawning realization: This was not what I had expected. In one photo I slouched, in another my double chin was glaringly obvious, in many my eyes were closed, and who in god&amp;#039;s name told me I was allowed to have bangs? My face looked greasy \u2014 especially in the later shots of the night, when I was, ahem, glowing from all the dancing \u2014 and my necklace clasp showed. I didn&amp;#039;t look like a princess. I looked like what I am: a fat girl with some good tattoos who cannot, as even still photographs made painfully clear, actually do the &amp;quot;Single Ladies&amp;quot; dance. I want to stress that the pictures themselves were great; our photographers were talented and a dream to work with and everyone should hire them. Every shot was technically lovely. The only problem was that too many of them contained my big, stupid face.  Tears started to well up in my eyes. &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s wrong?&amp;quot; my partner asked. I shrugged, but she kept pressing, because she understands me on a deep and intimate emotional level, which is so annoying. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t like the pictures,&amp;quot; I finally admitted. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t like my dress. I don&amp;#039;t like my hair. I look fat.&amp;quot; She stared at me, baffled. &amp;quot;But you look so happy,&amp;quot; she said, as though stating something achingly obvious, the way you might tell a small child, &amp;quot;Batteries are not for eating.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;We were both so happy.&amp;quot; She sounded hurt, as though by not liking our wedding photos I was rejecting these joyful memories. I only like photographs of myself where I&amp;#039;m wearing lipstick; where my hair is artfully arranged; where my head is tilted so my double chin isn&amp;#039;t visible; where my eyes are open; where I&amp;#039;m smiling, but not so much that I squint; where my body is contorted to create the optical illusion of a waist. But waist-having, lipstick-wearing, perfectly-coiffed, smiling-the-precisely-calibrated-amount Lindsay isn&amp;#039;t me \u2014 not the version of me that my friends and family see and interact with in my day-to-day life. When I&amp;#039;m walking around my neighborhood, I don&amp;#039;t adjust my stance to make my legs look longer. When I&amp;#039;m teaching a class, I don&amp;#039;t hold my head at the perfect angle to give my hair more volume. When I&amp;#039;m falling down laughing at something my partner said, I don&amp;#039;t check to make sure my smile isn&amp;#039;t making my cheeks look puffy. When we&amp;#039;re fully ourselves and living in the moment, we don&amp;#039;t stop to think about how this will look on film. We don&amp;#039;t feel out the best lighting or stop to adjust our necklines. We dance. We laugh. We close our eyes because our smiles are taking up too damn much of our faces. When we&amp;#039;re trying to look pretty \u2013 for a camera, for other people, for our cats \u2014 we can&amp;#039;t experience anything fully. We&amp;#039;re outside of ourselves looking in, evaluating our faces and bodies for their aesthetic value. We are alienated from our own feelings, from our own joy and sorrow, exhaustion and elation.  Now I&amp;#039;m trying to step back into my body, into the memories these photos evoke. On the day of my wedding, I didn&amp;#039;t regret getting bangs; I didn&amp;#039;t worry about fixing my makeup, or wish I&amp;#039;d gone on a &amp;quot;wedding diet.&amp;quot; I was surrounded by almost all the people I love in this world, eating delicious food and dancing until my feet ached. I look like a dork, in a dress that doesn&amp;#039;t fit quite right. But who cares, you know? I&amp;#039;d rather have my memories of laughing and sneaking a kiss with my partner in our dressing room and dancing to &amp;quot;Bad Romance&amp;quot; with my grandfather than the most gorgeous glamour shots ever to grace a mantelpiece. I am tired of telling myself that a moment is only as good as the picture you take of it. I don&amp;#039;t like the way I look in my wedding photos. But on the day they were taken, I was so, so happy. I was so happy my face was sore. The pictures are not all I have to remember that day. I have my partner. I have my new name \u2014 our two names combined to represent our new family. I have myself, my life and love and the happiness that I carry with me. That&amp;#039;s what I get to keep. Follow Lindsay on Twitter. Photo Credit: Studio Noda Photography "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a5202/i-hate-my-wedding-pictures/?ir=Weddings>