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Mum recounts how preschooler's hilarious school photo fail went viral: 'Better luck next year'

By Merryn Porter |

School photo day can be stressful for children and their parents.

They are also the source of some pretty epic fails, especially when school photographers take it upon themselves to Photoshop the imagesจC fake teeth, anyone?

But a mum in the US ?delighted the internet after sharing a video showing her daughter's preschool photo and a picture she took beforehand, which left her asking what went wrong.

Watch the video above.?

Nicole Bartlett's before and after pics of her three-year-old daughter's school photo day have gone viral. (Instagram)

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Nicole Bartlett first took to her Instagram account back in October to share the before and after photos in a short video.

It starts with a photo of her smiling daughter ready for her first ever photo day at preschool.

The little girl is dressed in a cute button-up long-sleeve dress, tights and socks. Her long blonde locks have been styled to hang down over her shoulders and she has a thin headband in her hair.

She is smiling sweetly and the palms of her hands are gently resting on her face.

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Before ... the little girl ready for her first preschool photo. (Instagram)

Across the screen is written, "How I sent her to school for picture day..."

The video then changes to reveal an image of Bartlett's daughter's school photo on an order form.

Her daughter is sporting a huge open-mouthed toothy grin but her perfectly styled tresses have been replaced with an unruly mane of tousled hair.

Bartlett uploaded the short video to her Instagram account with the comment, "Better luck next year," where it soon went viral.

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After ... how the little girl looked in the school photos. (Instagram)

Now, months later in an interview with PEOPLE, ?Bartlett admits she still has "no idea what happened" but is happy the image sparked joy with others and after her initial disappointment that the photo wasn't perfect, she decided to embrace the image.

Bartlett said that for her three-year-old's "first picture day," she got her up "a little early and explained to her it was a special day," which meant adding "a little bit of hairspray and hair gel" to her morning routine.

"I usually let her wear her hair up for school just to keep it out of her face and everything. But for picture day, I wanted it down," she said.

"Her classroom was scheduled for morning picture time at like 9.30," she said, adding she thought this was "perfect" as she was "going to get off the bus, basically have breakfast, and go straight to pictures."

Despite having "really, really high hopes," things did not go to plan, as she discovered later. ?

Bartlett was looking forward to getting her daughter's photos and planned to give them to her grandparents, aunts and uncles for Christmas.

"When I opened her backpack and saw the order form with the options for the pictures, all four of them pretty much looked the same. I laughed, but I was a little upset," she said.

She admitted she "kind of wanted to ask her teacher if they have picture retakes" before her mother told her, "She's in preschool, Nicole. They don't have picture retakes."

"Once I started really thinking about it and showing everybody the pictures, they were like, 'This is something that's going to be shown on her wedding day. This is better than you could have imagined.' So we ended up ordering a huge package and everyone is still getting their framed picture."

Bartlett said while she was still not sure what happened to her daughter's hair on the day, she thinks "she played extra hard." "I was just glad she smiled, to be honest."

Despite not being a big social media user, she decided to post the video on Instagram after being urged to by people who predicted it would 'go viral.' It was an instant hit.

"I got a lot of comments like, 'I was having a terrible day and then I saw this and it instantly made me smile' so I was happy to see that."

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Hilarious school photos that didn't go to plan

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