Oh, man - so, our wedding photographer was a long-time friend of my partner's parents. As in, saw him all while he was growing up, and knew him as an adult.
She wanted to do the photography for our wedding as her gift to us, and we very gratefully said yes. Pictures turned out fine, though my favorite is honestly just a candid my mom took of my husband and I while we were seated together after the ceremony, where we're kissing.
About a week after the wedding she dropped off a CD and a thumbdrive containing all our photos with my in-laws, who called us up to let us know - along with teasing hints that she'd also left 'another gift' for us. When we showed up to visit and collect the items, they revealed what the gift was.
It was a big (like 20x30'), framed, caricature drawing of the two of us, where she'd turned his full beard into a van dyke, made him (chestnut hair, hazel eyes) dark-blond and blue-eyed, and me (dark, dark brown hair, almost black-brown eyes) corn-blond and gave me light brown eyes. You could just barely tell it was us otherwise.
They cracked up when they saw our reactions. They said they had no idea she had intended to gift us this, and had no clue where she pulled reference pictures from, what prompted her to make the caricature, or why she'd think we'd want it.
For extra context, I am an artist who did portraiture professionally for YEARS before moving in a different direction with my painting, something the photographer was very aware of. We were literally talking about my art, and she stopped to look at my website, during the reception.
When we came back over to visit the next time, they asked if we'd hung up the portrait. They were shocked when we said yes, then laughed when we explained that we'd flipped the picture over in the frame, and used the glass surface as a whiteboard.
Nope! She is very much more my in-laws' friend than someone we actually know or interact with, so it just seemed like the least stressful option with the least potential for drama to simply move on. We mostly landed on the assumption that she really was just trying to make a nice gesture, in her own very strange way.
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u/Shoddy-Rip8259 Jul 02 '25
I was expecting the reveal for it to be drawn by a caricature artist.