Old wedding photos

It is your album , I would keep it somewhere she won't see it till she is older , I wouldn't have taken him out of the pictures , is he your granddaughters Father ? she will be more confused at him not being there in the pictures

I would keep it.
I would put it away where DGD can't find it, until such time when and if mummy tells her about the past. I think DD would be upset if DGD found out through you but in 10 or so years time DGD may like to see it.

Hi Aggie thanks for your reply. No he isn't her father. My daughter's new partner is her Dad. There is no connection.

aggie OP says her new partner is DGD father.

Sorry cross posts

oh ! just as well to delete him then !
Girls love to look at photos of "The olden days" so she will love it in the future , and maybe when your DD is not as raw she might like to see herself

2 of my daughters are divorced and remarried. They`ve both destroyed all their wedding photos from their first weddings, plus any other photos of their ex husbands, and don`t like my having kept all my copies. My explanation is that those photos are part of our family`s history, and I hate the idea of destroying them. Probably after I kick the bucket they`ll go through all my photos and lots will be destroyed then.

I kept all the photos of my first wedding. My first husband was an alcoholic and had an affair with my best friend. We separated and then after two years divorced.

Then I met and married my second husband and we had two children. I never hid the photos from them; they always knew that I'd been married before. As the girls grew up they loved looking through my old albums of me as a child, my first boyfriend, me as a student, my first wedding - all part of my past.

Perhaps your daughter might tell your grandchild about her first wedding one day and then she might want to see the photos.

It is a bit of a dilemma. My DS is divorced with a daughter. When he remarried he gave me the wedding album from his first marriage to keep for my DGD. The first wedding and subsequent celebrations were enjoyable, so I wrote an account of them for DGD, feeling that she should know about them. Everything to do with the wedding of her mother to my DS is packaged safely together for DGD to have when she grows up so that she has a record of it if she wants to keep it. I think it's her right to know about her parents.

Thanks for your feedback. I will keep the album out of sight and maybe one day my DD will say do you have any old photos of my old wedding to show DGD.

I have albums of my daughters first marriage ,I kept them for the children,its good that they know they were born from love and that their parents were happy together .(even though he was a serial cheat just a few years in) Thankfully my daughter and her ex have a very civilised breakup and divorce .They still see each other on the childrens birthdays and he phones her for a chat if he worried about anything.His new wife is a bit of a delicate flower and "cant handle worry" .Its good for the kids to see that even when a marriage didn't work they can still be friends .

I'm glad you've decided to keep the album. They are part of your past as well as your DD's, I've kept the photos from my 1st marriage because they contain so many loved ones no longer with me.

I'm a great believer in keeping family records, good or bad.

Hide the album, it's part of your family's past history and once all the emotion involved in the failed marriage is over, it will become interesting.

I only wish I had just one photograph of my wedding.

I have old photos of my sister’s first wedding nearly 60 years ago and I gave copies to her daughter (from her third marriage). My niece was delighted to see pictures of her mum so young and all dressed up. You can’t erase family history.

I have the album of my younger daughter’s first wedding, cannot distroy it, photographs of so many I care for in it.

I think it sounds like your storytelling of your daughters first marriage in the photographs are likely being kept by you as they are part of your story too. Our lives with our children are interwoven. I'd respect my daughters wishes to a point by keeping them safe. One day your daughter may want to see them too, or at least understand they are somewhere should she wish to revisit them. In this digital age photographs are rarely kept and yet they capture the moments of who we were at that time. Maybe in time your daughter will want to see who she was to place into context the story of who she was at that time.

I'm 56 and divorced for 20 years. I kept my own wedding photographs, and also the letters and keepsakes from that time. I had a horrendous marriage at the end, with domestic violence being a part of it. I put everything away and now I'm glad I did. In my own life review I look back on these and can get in touch and understand the younger me, with all the hopes and dreams - in a way it helped me grieve - not for the loss of my marriage but for the loss of what I did not get in life. This may sound deep, but I hope it is helpful in some way.

My daughter (31 years) is also the child of that marriage and it is part of her history too. I recognise this is a different situation than the one you are faced with.

My view is that destroying things is sometimes good, but the act of doing it does not 'delete' the experiences from our lives.

Keep the album. It is part of your family history

I too am divorced, but I have kept my wedding photos as they have pictures of so many people who are no longer here. Including my precious dad and nanny. I think my mum has hers too. As you say it’s all part of the family history.

I have a lovely album of my daughter's first wedding and also a video. I don't look at them anymore, but I just keep them. If her daughter ) by her second husband} ever wants to see them she will be welcome. I don't suppose my daughter kept any of the photos. My daughter looked so beautiful all those years ago, and she is still lovely today. I just cannot get rid of those lovely photos and video, which also include pictures of my dear late husband.

I'd keep some, just as a record of the history of your family, and especially those which include other family members you don't see often. But perhaps get rid of a lot. If you have a special wedding album, take out those few photos you want to keep and put them in your general family albums then throw out the special wedding one - after all you don't want to make it a celebration any longer.

My parents split up when I was three and subsequently divorced. My father re-married and moved away, so we became estranged. It affected me badly - a bit less so now I am in my 60s. My mother died first, and then my father died about 10 years ago. I inherited a box full of family ephemera as his second wide had died before my father. I was fascinated to pour through it all and felt I was getting to know my father vicariously. However, I then came across what was clearly a wedding photo of my father in a suit with a button hole. The photo had been cut in half, so the side with my mother on was missing. It was so upsetting to see and feel the anger and bitterness that must have led to that action. It still saddens me to think of it. I wish it had been kept whole.

I agree that you can't erase history. In my case, ex and I had 3 children together. When we divorced I cut him out of our wedding photos - giving a Swiss cheese effect. Later on, I had a sudden realisation (at a funeral, so was maybe a bit emotional) that it was wrong to remove the children's father from a legal, documented event. But a daughter has the complete pics too, so that's ok.

It's different if there are no children from the marriage, I think. In OP's situation, I think I would write a letter explaining briefly about that marriage and put it in the album for a future find by grandchildren. Would hide it till they are older. Or just talk to daughter about her feelings on this? People often don't hide previous marriages nowadays. Time has passed, things may be less raw. But it does document your past too, OP.

I don't know if its superstition but I can't throw photos away, or deface them.
I feel differently about digital images for some reason....

I kept my wedding photos after my divorce. I'm so pleased I did. One of the best, me with my dad outside the church stands on my mantelpiece. It's one of the few photos I have of the two of us when I was grown up, and now he's gone I really tteasure it. Keep the album eventually it may not just be your DGD who appreciates some of the photos. We someimes do things when we feel very bitter that we regret afterwards. And remember although it was her wedding all the family were involved.