I like what I’m hearing.
It could just be a photo of her face, but way larger than life, and high up over the most prominent part of the room. Think chairman Mao.
Better yet, make it a picture of me.
Unless you’re promoting a movie or modeling, I could never think of an appropriate use for a life-sized photo. At a wedding it seems particularly tacky.
I would like to officially flip flop on my position.
I’ve been to many weddings where they had a 8x10 or a little larger photo of the couple from their engagement photo or something similar near the entrance or where you sign the guestbook. But never of just the bride, that would be weird to me and appear a little vain.
Or Charles Foster Kane.
Perhaps she could appear on the side of the building where the reception is held. Or the church!
I bet this is somehow for the photographer’s benefit rather than yours, as it does sound as though you want a nice wedding but nothing too big and tacky.
Plus, as whoever said, it would end up all over the internet. 
hahahahahaha, I was thinking the same thing.
I’m sure you’re right about that…I’ll bet he plans to charge hundreds of dollars for that portrait.
Might as well commission a new version of the 1984 Macintosh ad, with the bride’s face in the place of Big Brother’s, and the groom racing through the dusty tunnels in red shorts and a white tuxedo shirt, to throw a bouquet at the screen, after which a great wind blows confetti over the gaping celebrants’ faces, and…
No, wait. I think I’m getting that a little confused.
Anyways, a full-size pic of only the bride seems like it would be the kind of thing demanded by bridezillas. Even one of both the bride and groom seems odd. That the photographer suggested it sounds like a grasping for Expensive Service Fees. Your local culture may differ, of course.
You, as the bride, can say “No” to photographers.
It needs more emphasis:
You, as the bride, can say “No” to photographers.
I wish I had realized that.
There really isn’t a single decent photo of me and Mr. Neville from my wedding. The photographer made me take off my glasses for some of them. I can’t see anything farther away than maybe a foot, and something about my eyes makes the lack of ability to focus really obvious in any picture of me taken without my glasses. I look either brain-dead or stoned out of my gourd in a lot of the pictures. Mr. Neville has a tendency to close his eyes in pictures, and I’m no good at faking a smile (and I hate having my picture taken, so a real smile is out of the question), so there isn’t a good picture where I am smiling and don’t look stoned and he has his eyes open.
There is, however, a great pic that someone other than the photographer took of me and my dad in the bride’s room before the ceremony. We’re both trying and failing to fake a smile, and we have the exact same expression on both of our faces.
Another thing more brides should know:
Just because something is traditional at weddings doesn’t mean you have to do it at yours.
My MIL wanted us to do the cake-smashing thing at our wedding. That “tradition” (it seems to me to have only gotten started in the past few years) disgusts me. I refused. We didn’t even feed each other cake because we figured we’d just get it on each other’s faces and that idea appealed to neither of us. We didn’t do the bouquet or garter toss, either, since I don’t like those traditions. Mr. Neville, my dad, and his dad didn’t want to wear tuxes, so we didn’t do tuxes. Our reception was in the afternoon with a meal at a buffet restaurant following, so I didn’t have to work out a seating arrangement and Mr. Neville didn’t have to do a lot of dancing in front of everybody. We didn’t have a getaway car, so obviously nobody decorated it. And guess what? We’re still married, even though we didn’t do those traditional things at our wedding.
I have heard of a bridal portrait being displayed at the reception. From what I gather, this is an old southern tradition that’s mostly disappeared, except among the most formal and over-the-top southern weddings.
But I’ve never heard if it being life-sized, which really scares me.
A life size photo of the bride would make more sense at the bachelor party. But I wouldn’t touch it afterward.
Beat me to it.
But really… that’s the best thing I can think about the idea. A life size photo is a better choice than a life size cake. Perhaps you need a new photographer - what other “ideas” has this one presented?
Actually, it would be a lifesize photo of anyone other than the bride.
In the photo of the horse-drawn carriage . . . isn’t the groom sitting next to the cake, not the bride?
A life size portrait, huh? And what do you do with it when the wedding is over?
I’d choose a different photographer, simply for asking about the life-size bride pic. Your wedding will be recorded through the eyes of your photographer. It would be nice if said photographer had a modicum of taste.
The groom is required to carry it with him, so he never forgets who the boss is.
If I saw a big photo of a bride outside a reception room, I’d think they were having her funeral. “Young bride’s happy day cut short by her tragic death; groom and family devastated.”
And I say that any Doper who was present at the reception, but failed to make with the images should be immediately banned. Freakshows like that should be openly mocked.
I agree with Tabula Rasa, get a better photographer. It sounds to me like yours either has zero sense of taste, or bought into a deal where he get’s a bunch of those things cheap and is trying to fatten his wallet.