Last week you may have seen this article published in the Daily Mail about a couple that were so disappointed with their wedding photographer that they went to the local paper to publish their story. When I come across these articles (there seems to be one every year) I get frustrated that almost without exception wedding photographers are seen as enthusiastic amateurs at best. I know it’s only the Daily Mail and you’d expect such stories to feature in their particular brand of doom and gloom publishing but it has to be said that it’s disappointing to read another article about a couples wedding memories being ruined by the wedding photographer.

I hear complaints about wedding photographers quite regularly at the weddings I photograph. Usually somebody will tell me a horror story about a photographer at their friends wedding etc etc. And I have witnessed first hand some shockingly amateurish behaviour at friends weddings too.

But what I really can’t understand and what really makes my head spin is why seemingly intelligent couples choose to let these so called professionals loose on their wedding!

If this particular couple had simply visited Westgate Photography’s website and made just a few comparisons to other wedding photographers online then the alarm bells should have been ringing loud and clear.

I’ve published my guide to choosing a wedding photographer before but you can read it again here.

You can read the full Daily Mail article here.

Are these Britain’s worst wedding pictures? Newlyweds devastated as photographers fail to get couple in frame and took blurry shots

• Shots were out of focus, blurry, showed the back of guests’ heads and not a single pictures of the groom’s parents was taken

By EMILY ALLEN

PUBLISHED: 12:24, 20 April 2012 | UPDATED: 16:40, 20 April 2012

A newlywed couple were devastated after bungling wedding photographers ruined their big day by taking ‘horrific’ pictures – including one which featured a spooky floating hand.

Thomas and Anneka Geary commissioned professional photographers Ian McCloskey and Nikki Carter £750 to cover what should have been the best day of their lives.

But they were stunned when the pictures arrived and included out of focus shots of the couple, the back of guests’ heads and a snap of the bride’s mother whose face was completely obscured by her hat.

This snap of the couple signing the marriage register appears to feature a ghostly hand clutching a toy motorbike – but it’s actually where the snappers tried to edit out Anneka’s three-year-old nephew Harry

Astonishingly, the photographers even failed to take a single frame of the groom’s parents.

One snap of the couple signing the marriage register also appears to feature a ghostly hand clutching a toy motorbike where the snappers tried to edit out Anneka’s three-year-old nephew Harry who was standing in the background.

The pictures of the evening do, which hosted 120 guests, were also taken without flash.

The couple said almost every shot they received was wrong – including these blurry shots and one the happy couple walking through a doorway with a stack of cardboard boxes in the foreground.

Blurry: The pictures of the evening do attended by 120 guests were also taken without flash

Not in focus: The couple, from Warwick, demanded a full refund for the ‘nightmare’ wedding album but received less than half after the firm went bust

Cheers! The guests are photographed – largely from behind – raising their glasses to the happy couple – but they’re no where to be seen in this picture

A bad shot of the couple enjoying their first dance. Wedding photographer Ian McCloskey yesterday revealed the firm had gone bust

A blurry and poorly focused shot of the couple at their wedding venue just after the ceremony

A general shot of the Dunchurch Park Hotel where Thomas and Anneka Geary got married and had their reception. This wasn’t taken by the photographers