A simple Facebook post requesting a wedding photographer quickly turned into something much more for a bride-to-be in Northeast Ohio.
She is sharing her story of being fat shamed, she claims by the woman hired to capture the beauty on her big day, who did the exact opposite on her special day.
Katie Liepold, like so many others, turned to Facebook to hire a photographer for her May wedding.
“I posted and got about 20 responses,” said Liepold.
One of them was from Tower Photography in Medina, Ohio, which offered an engagement shoot along with two hours of coverage at the reception for $600.
"Didn't really need the engagement session, but it was in the package so we did it," said Liepold.
Liepold said that on the day of the engagement session, all seemed to go well with photographer Linda Silvestri.
"We laughed, we talked, we joked, we shared stories," said Liepold.
But when Liepold got a closer look at the pictures taken in the Cleveland Metroparks she says several pictures were blurry or taken at weird angles.
"This isn't exactly what I thought I was going to get," said Liepold.
As she continued to scroll through two pictures back-to-back caught her eye.
"She actually photoshopped one picture of us skinnier," Liepold said.
In a side-by-side comparison, you can clearly see the couple's appearance drastically changed.
"She probably took like 30 pounds off each of us," said Liepold.
Liepold immediately contacted Silvestri with her photoshopping concerns.
"That wasn't asked for, and I just felt like that was really hurtful and my pictures weren't good enough to be left alone," said Liepold.
Silvestri responded and said Liepold could cancel the contract.
However, the story doesn't end there.
Days later, the bride-to-be found a post from Silvestri on a Facebook page called Northeast Ohio Wedding Professionals Only.
It started with "and people have wondered why I have scaled back my photography business."
"A whole big rant about how just that week she had a photo shoot with two morbidly obese individuals," said Liepold.
The post, which has since been deleted, went on to say, "It is extremely difficult to get Pinterest worthy lovey dovey pictures when people can't even get their heads together."
"Bad lighting and blurry pictures isn't caused by fat," said Liepold.
Liepold said she is sharing her story to warn other brides-to-be and to get her deposit back.
"I didn't pay her $150 to have her make fun of me on a site," said Liepold.
Scripps affiliate News 5 in Cleveland tried multiple times to get Linda Silvestri on camera. She refused.
Silvestri did tell us she refunded Liepold and kept the $150 deposit since she spent two hours taking their engagement photos.
She went on to say she apologized for photoshopping the couple to make them look thinner.
