Looking for advice on what to do in this situation.
I booked our wedding photographer back in February of this year, for our wedding in June of next year. Since February, we have not heard from our wedding photographer aside from a few documents she sent about scheduling our engagement shoot, and how the timeline would go over the next year. I thanked her for those, but that was pretty much it at the time since we were not anywhere near ready to schedule our engagement photoshoot. Come May, I realize she hasn't even checked in once since we signed the contract, so I emailed her about scheduling the shoot. There was no response from her. Initially, I was very lenient about this considering everything going on with COVID-19, I know that everyone's situations are different. Long story short, it is now July and multiple emails later, I still haven't heard from her. I've called the number she has on her website, with no response to that either. My last email to her was to inform her that my fiancé and I wished to cancel the contract. No response. I find it unacceptable for a professional wedding photographer to not reply at all for several weeks to months. While I initially was patient, I feel like if she has a personal issue or something else going on that is preventing her from even responding to email, she should have an automatic reply set regarding when she'll be back to work. I would have appreciated any sort of reply and understood, but no reply at all is just unprofessional. Today I happened to find another number listed for her, and called (no answer) and sent a text message again detailing our reasons for cancelling. Our contract with her states we must send a written notice of cancellation, but no address is included so I have been trying to obtain the address (it's not online). I also have hopes of getting our $500 deposit back. Considering that we haven't actually heard from her since February, no work was ever scheduled or completed, and she's been completely unresponsive, I really am considering this a failure to adhere to her responsibilities in the contract. Do you think it's reasonable for us to request she return the deposit? I first notified her that we wanted to cancel about a year ahead of the wedding date. She has been very unreliable so I'd be surprised if she's able to book anyone else, but there is plenty of time to do so for other weddings. It's not like we are cancelling a couple months ahead of time. Even if we are not able to get the deposit back, I'll still be cancelling. Just looking for any possible advice as this has been a huge stress in my planning process.
