A wedding day may go by fleetingly, but the wedding images last forever. Which, in bride Anaya Ramos-Bridgeford’s case, might not be a good thing. That’s because when she excitedly opened her wedding proofs from her photographer, she discovered a bunch of what she called “crazy eyes” wedding images—roughly 10 to 15 of the photos she zoomed in on featured wedding guests with the “affliction.”

The Pennsylvania bride was shocked, to say the least, when she saw that the photos capturing the wedding of her and groom Jaylen on April 2. It had taken four weeks after the wedding to get the proofs back and while she admitted to feeling initially upset about the blunder, ultimately she couldn’t help but laugh. That’s because anyone who had been blinking was given the bizarre eye treatment, including the bride herself. Apparently the wedding photographer had sent the snaps to a company that edited (but not in a good way!) pictures where people were blinking and that resulted in the “crazy eyes” wedding images debacle!  

After the bride laughed it off, she posted the images to Facebook. “I received our proofs back today,” she wrote in the post. “My photographer called to allow me to view my photos before he released them to our entire family to view. I noticed that some of the pictures looked ODD… come to find out he sent our photos to a company that photoshopped EYES on everyone who blinked.”

The bride described the day recently in an interview with Petapixel, stating that “our photographer was with us all day. Stuck with me, who was likely being a bridezilla, for 12 hours taking photos all day.”

She also said the weather conditions on that day were not ideal for outdoor portraits due to cold temperatures and that “after the reception, the bridal party and family of the bride and groom gathered outside to take photos in the cold. Everyone was cold and becoming impatient. Half of the party not looking. Our photographer struggled to get everyone’s attention. We had a large bridal party so I’m sure many of them lost focus during the photos.”

When the “crazy eyes” wedding images first came to light, the unnamed photographer who covered the wedding did admit to Ramos-Bridgerton that he sent the photos to another company to fix the eyes of those who blinked. He also called the bride to apologize and admit how terrible the photos looked. While we often advocate outsourcing retouching and editing tasks so that photographers can get back to doing what they love most—photographing—in this case it apparently wasn’t such a great idea! But it also raises the question of why would seemingly unusable images be sourced out to begin with. Altering eyes is never a great idea, especially on multiple images. According to media reports, the photographer is working to get a refund for the couple from the photo editing service he used.