Hate Your Wedding Photos? A Redo Session Can Fix That

If you hate your wedding photos, you are not stuck with them. There are four realistic paths, and I would try them in this order. First, ask your original photographer for specific fixes, because a lot of problems can be solved with new edits. Second, check your contract, so you know exactly what you are owed. Third, if your photographer can’t or won’t help, you can have the photos you already have edited by someone else. And fourth, if the photos themselves cannot be saved, book a redo session. You put your wedding attire back on, go somewhere beautiful, and reshoot your portraits with a photographer you trust.

I’m McKenzie, the photographer behind McKenzie Stewart Weddings in Las Vegas. I’ve personally photographed more than 300 weddings since 2009, and I offer redo sessions for couples who got married, hated their photos, and want photos they’re proud to hang on their walls. Couples in your exact situation email me all the time, so I can tell you what’s realistic and what isn’t.

Is It Normal to Hate Your Wedding Photos?

Yes, it’s normal, and it’s more common than you might think. I regularly hear from couples who are unhappy with their wedding photos. Usually the editing looked different than they expected, important moments were missed, or they felt stiff and awkward the whole day and it shows in every frame. All of those are legitimate reasons. Disliking how you looked or felt in the photos counts just as much as disliking the editing.

One suggestion before you do anything. If your gallery just arrived, wait a few weeks and look again. Right after the wedding you’re tired, you’re full of feelings about the day, and you judge yourself harder than anyone else would. Some couples feel better about their photos once the day itself is a little further away. If you look again in a few weeks and still dread opening that gallery, trust that feeling and start working through your options.

What Can You Ask Your Original Photographer For?

Start with a calm, specific email to your original photographer. Most photographers want you to love your photos, and most of us are happy to make reasonable fixes. Here is what you can fairly ask for:

• New edits on specific images. Color adjustments, skin retouching, and different crops are all normal requests. Pick the photos that matter most to you and describe exactly what bothers you about each one.
• A second look at the full gallery. Photographers take far more photos than they deliver. If a moment you care about seems to be missing, ask whether another frame of it exists in the unedited files.

How you ask matters. Be specific instead of general. “Can you warm up the skin tones in these ten photos?” gives your photographer something they can actually do. “I hate these, can you fix them?” doesn’t. And keep it kind. A photographer who feels attacked gets defensive, and a photographer who feels trusted will usually do more than you asked.

There is one thing new edits cannot change, and that is your photographer’s editing style. The look you saw in your photographer’s portfolio is the look your files were shot and edited for. If you wish your photos looked like a completely different photographer’s work, editing will not get you there.

Can You Get Money Back for Bad Wedding Photos?

Usually not much, and your contract is the place to find out. There is no industry standard refund guarantee, and what you are owed comes down to what your specific contract says about deliverables and refunds. Contracts vary from photographer to photographer. Read yours before you ask for anything. In my experience, small goodwill gestures like extra retouching are far more common than money back.

What If Your Photographer Says No?

Sometimes the answer is no. Even then, you still have two options, and neither one needs the original photographer’s help: you can have the photos you already have edited by someone else, or you can reshoot your portraits with a redo session. Maybe your photographer refused, or stopped responding, or you already had this conversation months ago and it went nowhere. If that’s where you are, I wouldn’t keep pushing. The contract decides what you are owed, and pressing harder rarely gets a better result than the polite ask did.

Can Someone Else Edit Your Wedding Photos?

Often yes. Another photographer or a professional retoucher can usually work with the photos you already have, and this is the middle path between asking your original photographer and doing a full reshoot. Whether it’s allowed depends on your contract, so check the usage rights section before you hire anyone. It also depends on which files you were given, so tell the new editor exactly what you have.

Be honest with yourself about what a new edit can do. A different editor can adjust color, exposure, and crops. They cannot change what was actually captured. If the problem is missed moments, closed eyes, or how stiff you looked, no edit will fix that, and a reshoot is the better path.

What Is a Wedding Photo Redo Session?

A wedding photo redo session is exactly what it sounds like. You get back into your wedding attire, go somewhere beautiful, and reshoot your portraits with a photographer you’ve chosen carefully this time. Sessions like this are an established format, common enough that The Knot has a whole guide to them. You are not the only couple who has done this, and you don’t need an anniversary or an excuse to justify it.

Couples kept reaching out to me after a bad experience with another photographer, so I created a session just for them. I call it an Already Married Redo Session. A couple of related formats exist too. Some couples plan a day after session before the wedding even happens, which is a similar shoot booked in advance. Others attach the reshoot to a vow renewal, so the photos have a real event behind them instead of feeling like a redo. The photography works the same way in all of them.

And if the reason you hate your photos is that you felt stiff and awkward, I want you to hear this part. Feeling awkward in front of a camera is normal, and couples who feel that way are my specialty. I use prompts, not poses. I don’t tell you where to put your chin. I get you laughing, moving, and paying attention to each other, and the photos come out looking like the two of you on a really good day.

What Can a Redo Session Recreate, and What Can’t It?

A redo session can give you every photo that gets planned and set up for the camera: portraits of the two of you, individual portraits, detail shots of the dress and rings, and even a first look style moment if you never got one. Those are usually the photos that end up framed on the wall, and they are completely recreatable.

What a redo session cannot recreate is the live moments of the day itself. Your ceremony, your toasts, and candid photos of your guests happened once. If those are the photos you are hurting over, a reshoot will not replace them, and I would rather tell you that plainly than promise too much. For most couples, getting portraits they finally love changes how they feel about the whole gallery.

What a Redo Session Costs and How It Works in Las Vegas

My redo sessions are priced at my hourly rate: $300 per hour, with a minimum booking of two hours. Two more numbers are worth knowing:

• Images: You’ll receive about 60 edited images per hour of coverage, and I usually deliver more than that.
• Delivery: I try my best to deliver your gallery within two weeks. My contract allows up to eight, so that is the longest you would ever wait.

For national context, post wedding photo shoots typically start around $750 and go up from there.

There is no deadline on booking one. Couples do these sessions weeks, months, and even a year or more after the wedding. The only thing worth knowing is that sooner makes it easier to match how you looked on your wedding day, since things like hair and tan lines change over time. But if your first anniversary already passed, you haven’t missed your chance.

Plan ahead for your attire. If your dress needs it, professional wedding dress cleaning typically runs about $250 to $350, and alterations take a few weeks if the fit has changed. A florist can remake a small version of your bouquet, and I recommend booking hair and makeup just like you did for the wedding.

My favorite Las Vegas locations for redo sessions are Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, the dry lake beds, Mount Charleston, and Lake Las Vegas.

Talk to Me About a Redo Session

If you hate your wedding photos, I would love to talk with you about a redo session. Email me at mckenzie@msweddingimage.com and tell me what happened, what you wish your photos looked like, and whether you felt stiff the first time. You can also read my reviews on The Knot and WeddingWire, where I hold a 5.0 rating on both. And it’s okay if you’re still nervous in front of a camera. Making you comfortable is my job, not yours.