UNBELIEVABLE AI Wedding Photo Edits | These Galleries are RUINED

There is something deeply concerning happening in the wedding space and we need to talk about it. Regardless of what your feelings are on AI in general, this is presenting a serious risk and concern for wedding couples getting married today. And that is the prevalent use of AI editing in wedding photo galleries. This is not a niche situation. This is happening all over the place.

So the photographer that I hired to do my civil wedding photos used AI to edit all of our photos. Now the photos don't really look like me. They don't really look like my fiancé. They added things that aren't natural and I don't know what to do. Let's talk about it. So we originally weren't going to do a civil wedding, so I never planned on hiring a photographer for it. And maybe that's partially my problem is I was just looking for someone last minute and we found them through a company called Weddingbug. I guess just a bunch of photographers, um, and they can kind of pick one based on like what your style and what your vibe is.

Okay, no, it is not your fault if you're looking for the last minute. You are not automatically signing up for an AI-edited wedding album. It's not your fault for doing this last it. It's the photographer's fault. Okay.

So they picked someone for me. She was actually really great. Like, when we were there, she was really sweet. She was really helpful. It felt like comfortable and natural when we were posing. I loved like everything that we were doing. I didn't feel like anything was weird in any way. But when we got the photos back, I kept being like, something looks wrong. It's like something doesn't look right. And then as I was scrolling through the photos, it just kept getting worse.

Okay, okay, I just want to call this out for just a moment. Listen, sometimes we got to record something and the audio gets a little wonky, okay? That happened in two of my videos recently. I don't understand what happened with my microphone.

Just—

it hurts watching that happen.

It hurt. And then we got to this one. Now on first glance you might be, "I don't see what's wrong here." But the thing is, guys, my dad does not smile. My dad does not smile with his teeth. Even if he does smile, Not to mention that his teeth also look jacked up. Like, I don't know. Like, it just doesn't look real. It doesn't look like him. And the reason I wanted these photos is to keep these moments, not to manufacture moments. And then we got to the portraits. My girl. Even in my biggest dreams, that is not me. That is not what I look like. I'm sorry. That is obviously AI. And it's interesting because there were some normal photos, right? Like this one where it's like, okay, I look like myself, but as compared to the last photo, you can definitely tell like this girl is not that girl.

Like, who is she? No, those definitely look like different hair colors too. And that could just be the color of the edit, but I want your hair to look consistent in all the photos, in all of them. Again, if the lighting is drastically different and we can't control that, that's one thing. And I wish we had seen a side-by-side of her dad because, you know, this could, I'm not sure. This one, I'm not sure if it's passing. Passing the test, but I do see that she is very well aware that it's not her face. I can't tell because we're not seeing her in full beat, like, while she's filming this versus, like, her wedding photos. So I'm not— jury's out on this one.

I have the same photographer hired for our church wedding next Wednesday, and I don't know what to do. I don't know whether to ask her to just not use AI to edit the photos or if we should contact the Wedding Bug company and ask them to give us a new photographer. I don't know what to do, and it's less than a week away, and this is just, I don't know, a little just sad and disappointing. There's, like I said, there are some good pictures. I showed you one of them, um, but it's just the fact that I really wanted, you know, just to capture the moments, and I feel like it's a little bit tainted now. So that sucks.

Okay, absolutely you need to talk to this company, especially because if you could have a rotating photographer option. And you need to send like proof, better than what you gave us in the video. You need to send proof into the company to say this is not what it looked like, this is not what my face looked like on my wedding day. Something's fishy here. My dad doesn't smile. Those aren't his teeth. Like I can show you what my dad looks like in almost every single photo for my entire life. Something is slightly off here. I don't know what's happening. And maybe the photographer thought that she was gonna pull a fast one and be like, oh, it's gonna be fine, I'm gonna make dad smiling because he's not smiling in this one. No, we are, as we are hiring photographers, we are expecting them to capture our wedding day, not their interpretations of what our wedding day should be. So this is my client, or this was a friend of mine. I would say, one, you need to contact the company immediately and say, I am not comfortable having this person shoot my wedding because they clearly use AI to edit these images. I would also go a step further to go to that photographer and say, hey, is there any chance? And people, especially photographers, get, oh, real touchy about what I'm about to say. Ask for the raw photos. If you're like, hey, they very clearly used AI to edit on my wedding day. This is not what my dad looks like, and I want to remember him the way that he actually is and not in your really weird version of him. I understand that you wanted him smiling. I just want him as he is. Please give me the photos, the raw photos of what you have, because I would like to remember my father this way, not in whatever way you want him to be interpreted as. Because that's profound, because this is her wedding day and that's her dad. And one day she's only going to have these photos to look at, maybe after he's passed. And so it would be really important to preserve the integrity of who he actually is. And I honestly, it pisses me off when a photographer goes as far to make these kinds of edits because it just doesn't even make sense. Just buy a Lightroom preset and slap it over the bad boy. It's like, and that's not what I'm, hold on photographers before you're about to jump on down to that keyboard and get after me. I'm saying if you're gonna be a cheap photographer that cuts corners, like don't let this be the corner you cut. Real photographers, the real ones, they know how to get their subjects comfortable in front of the camera. They know how to set their camera at the right settings to capture the best lighting. They know how to work a crowd. They know how to get someone to smile. They know the angles, they know the location, they know the lighting. It's so much more than slapping an edit on things, okay? So please don't hear me by saying this, but if you're gonna be cheap, at least don't make it weird. Ugh, this ticks me off.

But this next one, I'd be horrified if these were my wedding photos. So if you are—

Oh my gosh. What?

If you are in the Chicagoland area and getting married, please listen up. So two of my friends got married this past New Year's Eve. They hired a photographer in Chicago who had really great reviews. They had a call with her. She said she was available. She would be the one obviously shooting the wedding since, you know, they're hiring her and they put the down payment down. After they put the down payment down, it had been like several months and they just did not ever hear from the photographer. So they started reaching out. And then a month before the wedding, she let them know that she would no longer be the one shooting their wedding and two of her associates would be shooting the wedding. Really, it's just like two freelance photographers because they found this post on Facebook. As you can see, she posted, posted it to a photography Facebook group. Asking for a primary and second shooter for a wedding on New Year's Eve. So a month before their wedding, the photographer let them know that she wouldn't be there, even though she knew a year in advance that she was not gonna be there, and ended up hiring just two random photographers that were not part of her team. So obviously really frustrating, but whatever. The photographers come, shoot their wedding, they are on their honeymoon, and they receive a tagged post on Instagram with this picture right here. Like I said, it was a New Year's Eve wedding in Chicago, so a winter wedding. And this clearly is not a background of a winter wedding. It looks like a summer wedding. It's very sunny and looks warm and nice. So she had just fully edited that background.

What? Why?

Why?

Why?

Why? Why? This makes me so angry. They picked winter because they wanted it to look like winter. Why would you do—

why?

And how do photographers think they're getting away with this? That's what I don't understand. That's what's freaking insane to me is because everyone knows it was winter. Outside, so why are we doing this? It's not like you're not gonna get caught. I'm so sorry, I'm yelling. I'm so sorry, I'm yelling. I— that makes me pissed.

They got more of their photos back, and these are just some other ones I'll share. This is the groomsmen. Clearly their faces are just—

Okay, was the photographer Picasso? Because we've got eyeballs in places they don't belong, or just mismatched, or their face is sliding off. Oh my gosh.

Their faces are just deformed. This is the bride and the groom. I don't know if you can tell, but this is just not their faces. It's actually insane. This is the bride and the mom. Her mom's hair did not look like that. And if you can see like the back picture, that's— something is going on there. Clearly AI. This is one of their portraits and this is just—

I was going to say frick. Just for the record, I was going to say frick. What? Wait, Kate, no, I'm going to go back. Those are two different brides. Those are two different brides. I'm like going back and forth between the— can we put both of those up on screen please? Those are two different brides. Also, the mom's hair is insane. And the frame is disappearing into the wall. What is happening? Oh, that's putting bouffant to a whole 'nother level, mama. We're just doing on one side. Why do it on both? Why even it out? Why make it— why put it in the middle, you know, when you can just have it over here? Like a fascinator, but it's just your hair growing an extra 5 inches.

Um, this is one of their portraits, and this is just not the background of where they were shooting their pictures either.

Okay, I get wanting to give your clients a fantastic photography experience, and you're like, hey, we couldn't make it to there, so I'm just gonna Photoshop it. AKA now means I'm just gonna AI that because I just want to give you something better. But I want real photos of where we really were. Don't gaslight me into thinking that this is where my wedding was or this is where we took photos because it's not. Because this is not accurate and this is pissing me off.

So obviously they're pretty upset about this whole situation. They reach out and pretty much what the photographer lets them know is that AI isn't for everyone, even though in their contract it never once shared that it would be AI photos. They start just doing some research. Obviously I showed that one post where she's asking for like a lead shooter. I think she does this a lot for a lot of her clients. But then they also just found some new information where she's allegedly stealing other photographers' photos and like posting them acting like they're hers, but then just like using AI to slightly change them. So obviously this is just really upsetting. Like wedding photos are supposed to be like the most important photos you'll ever have. And the fact that she is ruining them and making people pay a very expensive amount for luxury wedding photos and then they're receiving this is just not fair. So yeah, I'm not going to say her name, but if you guys figure out her name in the comments, that's totally fine. But just be aware of a scammer in Chicago and please don't book with her.

Shout out to this friend for making this video. I also did go and take a look at the comments and it sounds like the photographer is sending cease and desist letters to whoever brings her name up. Okay, this is vile. I hate this to my core so deeply and so ardently. Like, just give them actual footage of their wedding day. They're not asking for you to recreate their wedding day. Or if they are, then they can do that on their own freaking time. Even though it might break the contract between you and them if they edit the images that you give them. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not getting into the weeds on that part of the conversation. What is this? What is this?

I don't know how common this is, but if you are going to get married during the time of AI, make sure your photographer does not use AI to edit their photos so you don't end up like me. As a point of reference, this is a photo that one of our guests took. My friend didn't have a you know, really professional setup. It was one of those nice point-and-shoot cameras. But this photo isn't edited. That's our officiant, Joas, one of my good friends, and that's my husband, and that's me. So this is the photo that our photographer took. It's not bad, right? Looks fine. Who is that?

Okay, wait. Okay, wait, that's a completely different, that person, this man has glasses on. That's a different person. Also, the color saturation on this is so weird and it has that fuzziness to it that you typically see in AI photos. Which is why I'm like, I'm grateful that there are still those that are very easily spotted. Although, although I do fear they are getting quite a bit better. But that's a completely different person. Can we throw up a side by side of this? That is a different human.

Who is that? A little bit uncanny valley, but it's very, it's negligible. Again, who is that person? That is not my friend.

Well, his glasses are gone now. Okay, so maybe the photographer's like, oh no, oh no, oh no, I accidentally added glasses. AI, delete. Aboard, take the glasses back off. He definitely looks like someone who says, "Woohoo, yoo-hoo, pick some blowout!" You know? Like, that's, that's, that's a different human.

That's not Joe. Here's another photo that my friend took. Look at my husband's face, okay? That's how he looks like in real life. Who the fuck is that? That does not look like my husband. The officiant kind of sort of looks like my friend, but it does not It's not him. And that is— I don't know who that is. That's me. I don't know who that is. That's not the guy I married. This came from the album from my photographer's website. These are the proofs, so—

She gave him a bald spot! She did him real dirty on that one. That's a different human. His hair color is different, he's got a glaring bald spot, that's a different face. What is— how do photographers think they're gonna get away with this? This is what pisses me off, man.

This is a portrait that she took. Now, I have no complaints. I think it's nice. Where did my arm go in this photo? What is that? I don't have that material on my sleeves. You've seen the photos of my dress. It doesn't look like that. It just, it cuts off at a certain point. Like, where did my arm go? It's not a flowy sleeve. It looks like a flowy sleeve in this photo. And my waistband has sparkly beads on it. It doesn't—

Oh.

The dress looks different. And our faces, very uncanny valley. I feel like it doesn't really look like—

Okay, yeah, her belt's gone. Her husband's shirt is tucked in. Her sleeves, now that we see in the next frame, it stops just above her elbow. That went fully past. Like, it was like a full, like, bell sleeve type situation. I mean, obviously we didn't see the end of it. It was a long sleeve instead of a cap sleeve. What is—

Another frame of reference. This is a photo that one of my friends took. Same event, same people, same day. You can see the waistband there, my little belt. It looks different from the other photo.

Yes.

Did not edit this. I saw— I found this in the album like this. What is that? Why am I orange? And I don't even know.

Okay, okay.

Why does it look like her husband's body's been broken in half? Or like those guys who like can lean sideways on a pole by holding on, which is a feat that I will never achieve in my entire life. Even pre-children, couldn't dream of it. What is that? How does the photographer look at this and go, "Yeah, that's fresh. Look at that. Yeah, he looks great." He's bent at a 45-degree angle, ma'am. That's not physically possible with your legs being like— I mean, It just doesn't— it doesn't look right. I mean, maybe it is possible, maybe I'm just leaning, but you can agree with me that it looks wrong, right?

Okay. Here's a photo of our first dance by the photographer. What is going on with that face? What is— like, it doesn't look like us. Like, I—

it—

like, what the fuck is going on with my husband's face? What is that?

He 100% looks cross-eyed, which we're now seeing is a theme with AI-generated um, wedding edits. Because, because it also— how is the handkerchief being held taut like that? I don't understand. Someone explain it to me, break it down Barney style please, because I don't understand how a, a handkerchief can float being taut, um, but without having tension in one of the corners. I don't understand how we're doing this.

This is a photo of one from one of our guests. That is my child right there walking me down the aisle. You can see, uh, they've got like, you know, those round glasses with like a chain design, um, like —dangly on the front.

Stop for just a moment. She's carrying a freaking sword. She's carrying a freaking sword. You know what? You know what? If these are D&D people, I'm gonna lose it. I'm gonna freak out. If this is Ren Faire, I love it. I'm obsessed. And yeah, the chain is super cute on the glasses. I love the round look. Okay, okay. This— she's carrying a sword with flowers on it. I love you.

This is the photographer's photo of my child. The glasses are a different shape. The dangle on the front, it's gone. I don't know, they weren't wearing those earrings. I don't know what those earrings are. They weren't wearing whatever earrings that is on the photo. And the outfit, the clothes look weird.

Yeah, the clothes are completely different. It went from like something with a little bit of like a sheer overlay, the glasses with the chain, very round, dare I say Harry Potter-esque, which don't get me wrong, I absolutely love. And the hair looked different too. Like we went from having an A-line bob to looking like it's a lot longer in the front and in the back. Back with a lot flowier of a curl pattern. I mean, like, this person is completely changed. Completely changed. It's not the same. If we do a side-by-side, it's not the same person. Why are they doing this?

So quick backstory, I got married last October and it was a very small wedding. It was under 50 people. And originally my idea was to just give people, um, our guests disposable cameras. But then I thought, well, that would, you know, kind of pressure people to like take photos and stuff. So let me just find, maybe I could find someone who is either a student, um, we're really close to university, um, or someone who's just starting out in their photography business, and just have someone there taking photos. Like, I wasn't even— I didn't even care about the quality of the photos. Like, I don't need like professionally edited photos or whatever. I just wanted someone to be there capturing, you know, moments.

Well, you got that. You got that. This reminds me of the couple that hired a high schooler to do their wedding and never got the images.

I went on Facebook and made a post in one of those word-of-mouth groups, and being that my wedding was going to be in a small town, um, I I actually got a few responses that were well within my budget. And, you know, as I was looking at the, you know, the responses, I wanted to support, you know, a woman-owned business and a woman of color if I can. And I did find one. And everything went well. Like I told the photographer my, you know, what I wanted. Like I said, I just want, you know, I just want someone to be there capturing the moments. I don't really have, you know, like crazy expectations. And so I gave her the information and I, you know, I put my deposit in. I went online and checked her work. She didn't have a lot of albums, so I assumed that she wasn't like as seasoned, which was fine with me. And her photos looked decent enough, so I went ahead and booked her. She was very, very affordable. Again, I was not expecting, you know, a $3,000-$5,000 photographer quality. I was like, okay, I'm supporting a small business, a woman of color, you know, and I'll have someone taking photos at the wedding. I did ask the photographer later on when I got the photos, I addressed to her that, you know, there are people in the photos that are not people at the wedding and I would like for her to fix it or, you know, just give me the raw, which I knew it was a long shot, and she responded that she was going to, and I just— those photos, I screenshotted them from today, March 26th, 2026, and she has not changed anything. And I'm not going to expose this business. I'm not gonna— I just want to raise awareness. I took the L. I'm not trying to get my money back. I'm not even trying to, you know, leave like review or anything. Like, I just let it go because it was not— but my friend Amber took really fun photos of the night, thankfully, and she did a really good job at capturing how fun the night was. And I'm going to show you what her photos look like.

Hahaha.

So we just got swords everywhere after this bad boy. This is where, okay, I don't know if you caught the part where she said, "I went onto a word of mouth Facebook group." Listen, a Facebook group is not gonna be a cure-all for helping you find a vendor that's gonna be effective at their job. She knew she was going into this saying, "I'm gonna hire someone who I know is inexperienced and is inexpensive." Okay, I know I'm entering into this. That's why at the end she says, "I'm gonna take the L. This is on me." Okay, I know, I guess I knew what I was getting into. I'm saddened that she's not received the raw footage yet. That is absolutely heartbreaking in my opinion. I'm glad that she has other resources at her disposal. This is not a "you get what you pay for" rant. It's not. Because I firmly believe that you could have a beautiful wedding with great photos at any budget. You're gonna have to be mindful if you're looking at an ultra-luxury wedding photographer's website that you're probably not gonna get delivered the same results, okay? You have to be aware of that. It might be the same camera, but it's not the same photographer. When I say to go to a Facebook group to look for a photographer through word of mouth, it is not just to have photographers send you in like, hey, pick me messages, okay, or comments on your post. It's to ask other vendors. It's to ask couples, who have you experienced, who do you enjoy, etc. And there is a bit of a minimum when it comes to a professional wedding photographer. So if you fall underneath that minimum, the chances are you're not going to get the same caliber of gallery. However, since we've looked across the board, a lot of these galleries being delivered where people just don't look right and they don't look normal, what is your recourse here? Well, First and foremost, be sure to view full galleries of previous weddings. This is already going to push you into a minimum of $1,000 to $1,500 for a wedding photographer. I would argue that it might even push you into $2,500 as a minimum for a wedding photographer, okay? If you want to go underneath that, you absolutely can. I'm not your mama. You can do whatever you like. But I am saying professional wedding photographers tend to start at about the $2,500 range and go up. Anything under that, they'd be an amateur or a photographer who dabbles in other activities, et cetera. So just bear in mind that that's probably the floor for wedding photography. You can get a photographer that shoots a wedding, but you're not gonna get a wedding photographer. Photographer. Okay, okay. Um, or someone who's new. I already said, see full galleries, hear back from people, uh, realize that there is a— there's a floor to the cost of a professional wedding photographer. But what do you do in a situation like this? One, make sure you read your contracts very thoroughly. Okay, I want you to know what legal recourse you have. I want you to know what you can do in a situation like this where you do not agree or do not enjoy the results that you have received, which is very clearly AI-manipulated. I do not think there is a legal recourse against the use of AI, but I do think that there should be some sort of provision, I think you should add this in specifically when you're talking with a photographer and say, hey, this is no shade against you, but I just want to make sure you're not going to be using AI to edit any of our photos, correct? I love your work. I trust that that is all your skill set, because of course we don't want to inadvertently offend the photographer in this scenario. Like, you do great, don't get me wrong. I just want to make sure that you're just not like gonna move my eyeballs 2 inches to the left, okay? I just, I just want to make sure. And of course, most photographers are going to assure you, as they should, that that should not be an issue. But let's just make sure that we get that in writing. So if and/or when afterwards a situation like this might arise then you have that communication to fall back on. It would probably take a lot of hemming and hawing to get this figured out. I do truly think some cases are going to have to go to court for there to be some, at least a little bit more regulation or safety around this kind of thing, because there isn't any. There isn't any. And this is not an AI hate video. It's not an AI love video. It's just an AI awareness video. Make sure you're selecting your photographers carefully. Make sure you're getting word of mouth, not just from a Facebook group where people pitch you their own services, but you get it from somebody else. See full galleries if possible. Be aware that you have to raise the floor of what you're paying for a photographer to get a more assured version of wedding photography experience. And don't be afraid to put in writing, hey, we don't want any sort of AI edits done to our photos at all whatsoever. We just want to double check that that's not a part of your practices and procedures. And that can be something that is a part of your intake questions, which by the way, if you are interviewing vendors and you have no idea what you're doing, don't worry. You're not supposed to. That's why I made the master plan. There's a whole section with Q&As for every specific vendor you might be hiring with questions designated for each type of vendor. I'm going to go ahead and link it right here. The master plan is this incredible resource. I teach you how to plan your wedding. Mm-hmm. From point A to wedding day, and I'm there on live calls all the time. So I highly recommend you check that out. How about you? What are your— what are your thoughts on AI? Okay, what are your thoughts? Because there's like a huge crowd that like loathes AI, and there's a huge crowd that loves AI. Then I also think there's like a lot of people in between who are like, I know I don't really love it, but like some of it is kind of beneficial.

Where do you land?

Where do you land? If you're brave enough to share, leave in the comments. So that's all we have for today's video, guys. Thank you so much for watching. If you liked the video, jump on down there and like the video and subscribe to this channel for more Tips and tricks for the modern-day bride. And until next week, bye guys! Bye!