Are You Editing Your Stories Too?
Even before I got married, I had this idea of printing our perfect wedding pictures and hanging them on the living room wall. However, after we got married, what happened to my “picture-perfect” plan is a whole story in itself!
I had been wanting to frame our wedding pictures for over a year until recently when I finally did it. As I mentioned earlier, I had a predetermined vision of our perfect pictures in my head. It took me a while to frame our pictures because I thought they were not “perfect”- what a bummer! Whenever I looked at them, I felt like the imperfections were staring back at me, making me feel sorry for myself.
There were a few pictures I had picked to frame, but each one had something that I did not particularly prefer. In some of the pictures, we had way too much tika (red powder mixed with rice and water and put on our forehead as a form of blessing during auspicious occasions), and in others, something about my dress was off. Whenever I saw these pictures, I kept thinking, “If only we did not have as much tika”, or “If only someone had told me to fix my dress” and things like that.
I went a step further to try to make these pictures perfect- I sent them to my Photoshop expert friend to get them edited. Unfortunately, she was not able to get them done right away due to an emergency in her family. And eventually, she might have forgotten about it, and I never followed up with her again about the photos specifically. While I was waiting for her to edit the pictures, I had some time to reflect on my choices, and I ended up printing and framing the not-so-perfect wedding pictures.
Long story short, now I have our “imperfect” pictures on our living room wall. I finally made peace with myself and printed those because I realized that I was trying to edit our real-life stories.
Our wedding is our story. No matter how imperfect it was, at the end of the day, the most important day of our lives- our wedding day- is the story we created and lived. Our wedding pictures are the tangible proof of our story. Too much tika on our forehead or my messed-up dress are parts of our story as a whole, and me trying to edit the elements of our story did not sit right with me.
Some days we just look back at those pictures and laugh about how red our faces look. I vividly recall how our camera crew suggested wiping off the tika from my nose for better photos, and I was worried about my makeup getting ruined. My best friend, who was right by my side, asked if we should really consider wiping the tika off my nose. Even as I write all this, I am flooded with memories of what was happening that day- the people that were present, the emotions I felt, and the moments we shared.
Those pictures are the only way to revisit all those cherished moments. While I could have had someone edit the pictures to my liking, wouldn’t I be erasing all these memories with those editing brushes? It felt a little heavy when I put it that way. I felt like I was not embracing our wedding day story with its full authenticity, and when I realized that, it was when I sent those pictures for printing and framing.
The pictures are the same, but the way I look at them has changed so much. I love seeing those pictures on our wall and constantly being reminded of the day we tied the knot with all those imperfect nuances that actually make our story perfect in its own way! 😊