Newlyweds Barry and Tracey Patefield today told how their big day was ruined by the poor quality of their wedding snaps.

The distraught couple complain some of the photographs taken by a professional camera man were blurred, others out of focus and on some they had their eyes shut.

And they say they are too embarrassed to show their wedding album to family and friends.

Mr and Mrs Patefield of Farm Hill Road, Eccleshill, have now been awarded hundreds of pounds compensation against Baildon photographer Maurice Avery in Bradford's small claims court.

But Mr Avery, who advertises in Yellow Pages offering quality professional wedding photography and says he has eight years experience, claims that most of the pictures were good quality.

Mr Patefield, 34, said: "We really are distraught by the whole thing and we can't bear to look at our own wedding pictures."

"My wife was in floods of tears when she first saw the photographs and now our whole wedding has been tarnished.

"There are shadows and the ones taken inside the church are very dark.

"On some photographs people are looking the wrong way, it looks like there are poles coming out of guest's heads or we've got our eyes closed.

It's not the money, it's the principle. Whatever happens we can never recapture that day and it's lost forever.

"We haven't even got a photograph up at home."

Mr Patefield and his 27-year-old wife also claim

They only received 47 photographs when they believed they would get a selection of 75

They were rushed on the day and other wedding guests were not allowed to take their own pictures.

The photographer suggested having pictures taken at Peel Park but they waited for more than 20 minutes and no one turned up

"We paid more than £300 for these photographs and we just expected that they would be a decent quality." said Mr Patefield, who is unemployed.

"We've been together 12 years and I wanted the day to be special for Tracey and our two sons Daniel, nine, and Dean, seven."

Maurice Avery, the owner of Mo Avery photographers who runs his commercial and wedding photography business part-time from his home in Baildon, said: "I did not attend the case and I am disgusted with the decision. As far as I am concerned 95 per cent of the photographs were OK.

"I was prepared to go to a computer firm to bring them up to standard but Mr and Mrs Patefield refused and wanted compensation."

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