Man Gets Support for Wanting to Photoshop Stepdaughter Out of His Wedding Photos

The new husband -- and stepfather -- sought advice after an argument with his wife over whether or not to edit the young girl from some of the wedding pics.

While many called him an a-hole, he ultimately received enough support from the subreddit to officially be declared NTA (not the a-hole).

Read on to see why!

"I just married my wife," the man began, going on to explain. "We've been together for almost 2 years. She has a daughter (almost 2 years old) from a previous relationship. Bio dad isn’t in the picture."

"The wedding was back in September," he continued. "Her daughter was around 18 months old at that point. She was going to be our flower girl."

"We had arranged for her regular babysitter to stay with her during the ceremony and take her home for the reception but right when the wedding started, she had a meltdown and only wanted her mom so my wife held her through the entire wedding ceremony," he recounted. "She got hungry and cranky during the ceremony so my wife tried passing her off to the babysitter so she could have a snack but she wasn’t having it so my wife held her daughter while her daughter was eating a ziplock bag of dry cereal during our wedding ceremony. She was also with my wife throughout the reception."

It was when he got the wedding photos back from the photographer that the trouble started.

"We just got the pictures back and a lot of them have the baby eating cereal on my wife’s hip in them," OP wrote. "I told my wife I wanted to photoshop her out of some of the pictures and put the photoshopped ones up, at least make it look like the wedding went the way we planned it."

Of course that didn't go down well with his new spouse.

"My wife thinks the pictures with her daughter are cute and wants to hang those up. She doesn’t see why we would photoshop anybody out of our wedding pictures," he went on to describe. "I told her I wanted the pictures to look a little more elegant and a baby eating cereal out of a ziplock bag isn’t exactly elegant."

"She’s upset now because she thinks I’m trying to erase her daughter and is currently sleeping in her daughter’s room," he concluded.

As previously mentioned, the post was ultimately branded NTA.

However, there were still a few questions Redditors had.

As one commenter put it: "I’m confused by a lot here, you’ve been with her almost two years and the kid is almost two. So you started dating right around when the baby was born? I’m baffled as to how or why a single parent of an infant was dating."

"Also, how long was the ceremony that she got so hungry and couldn’t wait until it was over?" the commenter continued. "But to the question. NTA. She’s being dramatic. You’re allowed to want some nice photos of you and your spouse from your wedding ceremony. You’re not editing her out because you don’t want her in any pictures, you’re doing it because she was up with you guys during the ceremony which was not the plan or desire but due to necessity."

In response, OP wrote: "We started dating when she was pregnant. Ceremony was not long but she was crying and still wouldn’t go to the babysitter so wife just gave her the snack."

Meanwhile, many admitted on the thread to being duped by the title of the post.

"I was ready to be angry with you from the title - but you're not trying to remove your SD from your wedding altogether...you're trying to get some pictures of you and your bride on your special day that don't include a tantrumy toddler and her snacks. There's nothing wrong with that," one commenter wrote.

That same Redditor also had a message for those calling OP an a-hole, "All of you saying he's TA are not seeing that he stated he wants SOME photos to be edited while others will still include the SD."

Others, meanwhile, questioned the desire to revise or alter what actually happened that day.

"Why would one even want pictures that don't reflect the truth. Aren't [the pictures] there to remember the day fondly?" a Redditor asked.

That single comment got dozens of replies, with many noting that people often place filters on  photos which alters or at least augments reality.

The OG skeptical Redditor noted in another comment, "Well yeah but I still think there is somewhat of a difference between making your skin look better and remov[ing] a whole child which changes the whole narrative of the day."

One commenter seemed to take umbrage with that idea, writing: "Very little about most weddings is 'the truth'. It's about pomp and circumstance and elegance. It's why people spend significant fractions of their yearly income (if you're lucky!) on them, plan them to a fair-the-well, do fricking rehearsals, the whole lot."

"Look at it this way - if the groom, just before the wedding photos, got a bloody nose and dripped blood all over the white shirt of his tux. (Based on a true story)," they continued to share. "And the option existed to simply edit the stains out of the picture. Would anyone seriously complain about that 'not reflecting the truth'? No, they would say it was lucky that it was so easy to fix."

"Now, in reality," the bloody-nose commenter concluded, "the groom was able to swap shirts with someone and nobody was the wiser in the photos, but really that's just the same sort of deception, but a more analog version of it."

Again, the commenter who originally was concerned with a factual documentation of the day responded: "Yeah I doubt the blood will ever have feelings about [this] or wonder why it got taken out of the pictures. Here we are talking about the step-daughter he is supposed to welcome into his life with the wedding as well."

While a different commenter echoed: "Why are you trying to create fantasy photos of a wedding that didn't happen the way imagined it might? What happened happened. You married a woman with a young child, and that child ended up being right in the middle of things. Accept this with good humor and put up pix of the wedding you actually had. Things do not always go to plan. The more you can learn to see the humor and roll with things and smile about them afterwards, the happier you will all be."

Meanwhile, in a reply to another comment, the OP said his new wife was willing to edit one aspect of the photos: "She loves the pictures with the baby and doesn’t want to photoshop her out of any of them. The most she’s willing to do is photoshop the snacks out."

What do you think of the situation?