Reddit mentions of Tweezerman Stainless Steel Cuticle Nipper 1/2 Jaw Model No. 3196-R

The first thing I would recommend is to check out this video on how to properly paint your nails. It takes a bit of practice, but once you get the technique down painting your nails will only take about five minutes total and look very clean and professional.

• Dotting tools. You can buy some from Amazon like these, or you can start out with things from around your house . I started out (before getting my tools) using bobby pins for large dots and toothpicks for smaller ones, and I'd snip the tip of the toothpick for medium. I've heard of girls using ball point pens and other things, too; they all work like a charm!
  
  
• A small angled [shader] brush (I recommend 1/4"). You can get them from any art store, or even use the little ones that come with creme/gel/etc. eyeliner. This is for cleanup. You paint your nails from start to finish, and then when you're done just dip the angled brush in acetone and swipe away any mistakes you may have. This is my number one "secret" for my nails looking really perfect. I'm not perfect at painting, I'm just really good at cleanup. ;)
  
  
• Pure acetone! I have both avetone nail polish remover and a bottle of pure acetone, and I suggest keeping both around. The pure acetone is perfect for cleanup because it picks up the polish immediately and dries just as fast. It's also the best for taking off glitter and other tough-to-remove polishes (use it with the foil method and voila!).
  
  
• Cuticle cream or oil. I love Lush's Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter; I bought it Christmas Eve and I've still got over half left, and I use it ever day. There are plenty of other products out there, but the point is to have one, use it regularly, and push your cuticles back every day. This way you don't have to cut them (which causes them to grow back all funky and can give you infections), but your cuticles and nails will look impeccably clean and taken care of.
  
  
• Hand lotion, because what's the point of having sexy nails if your hands look raggedy? I also suggest exfoliating, but I just do this with brown sugar and olive oil a few times a week. Easy peasy.
  
  
• Tweezerman Nipper Tool! This is to clip off any hangnails, etc., that you may have. This tool is seriously incredible; I've had three or four other brands of nipper tool and they all went dull on me within a month or two, but I've had this one for like two years now and it's still sharp as heck.
  
  
• A superfine glass or crystal nail file. NOT one of those cardboard/sandpaper deals, a glass or crystal file. Using this, and filing in only one direction, will keep your nails healthy and prevent them from splitting and peeling. That hard, back-and-forth sawing motion is what really damaged nails and makes them fall apart so easily. Also a buffer, but one that has a different coarseness on each side.
  
  
• A base coat, to prevent polish from staining your nails.
  
  
• A quick dry top coat. Seche Vite is the absolute best, IMO, but Poshe, Out The Door, and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (in the red bottle) are all pretty popular, too. The most important thing is that it's quick dry, though; it's meant to be applied to wet polish where it will bond to the polish you've used and the two will dry at the same rate. Seche Vite is my favorite because it's the fastest (that I've experienced, anyway, and I have a 1.5y/o...), has the most incredible shine, and really makes your mani look smooth and perfect.
  
  
• Nail art brushes.
  
  And...well, if I think of anything else I will let you know. I can't wait to see what you get up to soon! :)

Get one of these (you can find them much cheaper). It will change your life

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000WHYBE2?pc_redir=1407224142&robot_redir=1

Do you bite your nails? I ask because I used to bite mine really badly until about four years ago when I was finally able to quit for good and mine looked a lot like yours do now.

So the good news is that there are a few things that you can do to make them look better but the bad news is that it takes a really long time and you probably won't see much difference by the time you go to the wedding. For the short term, maybe consider press-ons? They've come a very long way since we were little and there are many out there that at first glance, look completely natural, even on less than perfect nails. Look for the ImPress brand (usually like $7-8 or so) and get ones that look pretty simple and natural like a french tip and unless someone is really staring at your fingers, I doubt they will notice!

For the long term, what I've done that's helped is to get into a nail care routine. Cuticle oil, nail file, orange sticks, and a cuticle trimmer or liquid remover are the tools you'll want. Two to three times a week (at least in the beginning, you can do it less frequently once they start to look like you want them to) take an orange stick and use the flat side to gently push back the skin around your nail. Some people oil them first to help soften them, I just usually do it after a shower while they're softer anyway. Then use the trimmer or liquid remover to get rid of the dead skin that's pushed back. I personally like this kind of trimmer but you have to be really careful that you don't accidentally cut the live skin. You're really just shaving away the dead skin with it. There's also this kind of nipper some people prefer and then there's the liquid stuff like this that dissolves the dead skin with no trimming required at all. It's all really just what you're comfortable with. Then oil them up when you're done, and if possible, oil them as many times a day as you can remember to. I try to do it at least once in the morning and once before I go to bed.

Then with regard to filing, let them grow out a bit more and like someone else suggested, file the sides down where they flare out, but only at the free edges. You should try to avoid cutting altogether. For rounder nail beds, a round shape tends to look better IMO.

So, forgive my awful MS paint skills but I drew on your pic a bit to help illustrate what I'm talking about. On your pointer finger, the spot that I circled is the area you're wanting to try to grow out and reattach to the nail bed. On the middle finger, I tried (I know, terribly lol) to illustrate how it would look after your cuticle line is pushed back over time and the nail bed reattaches along the sidewalls and then of course the white part is grown out and filed in a round shape. It all comes down to permanently pushing your cuticles back to expose more of the nail bed and allowing the sidewalls to reattach at the tips. Also, when you clean under your nails, be super gentle and don't push back the skin underneath - you want that to reattach to give you longer nail beds.

A lot of it just genetics and mine still don't look like nail blogger nails, but doing this has made a huge difference. I started really noticing results in about six months and now, you'd never know that they used to be super short. I still have some flaring on the sides, but I just file it away. I know this is like novel length, but mine used to look almost exactly like yours (except I had no white edge because I bit it all off lol) so I can totally relate to how you feel! I'd quit biting for a couple of months and then get so discouraged when they didn't look any better and just give up and bite again and it wasn't until I started really putting in the routine and effort that I was able to make it look better. I hope this helps! :)

These are a godsend.

You also said:
>Woops, i meant to say before my nail, as in if you held your hand with your palm facing away from you its the part thats under the nail, pic related http://i39.tinypic.com/34s5feb.png mine always get little pieces of skin sticking out or they're red/dried up even if i put lotion they get moisturized but look bad

Just for future reference, the layer of skin at the base of your fingernail is called your cuticle. I'd advise investing in a cuticle clipper and maybe a cuticle pusher as well. Often, when I'm not taking care of my nails, my cuticles will grow long and hang out on my fingers where they can get painfully snagged and ripped real easily.

With the tools, it's just a matter of pushing your long cuticles back every once in a while, then using the clipper to trim them. The cuticle clipper also works as a fantastic hangnail clipper--far better, in my opinion, than normal nail clippers, since it's sharper and more maneuverable.

Incidentally, you can also use most cuticle pushers as fingernail cleaners, so that also helps a bit with your "gunk under the nails" problem.

And just for good measure, if you have any bad habits that involve your fingers--picking, biting, whatever--you should make a concerted effort to stop. They only make your hands look worse.

Get one of these: http://www.amazon.com/beauty/dp/B000WHYBE2 (well, maybe not that expensive one, but you get the idea)

Tears through wart hats like a beast. Then try the contact treatments.