Photos Missed! Help

I would do the free photos too!!

I would be gracious and take them up on their offer. You get to wear all your wedding attire one more time, and it makes a good story of how important these special people are to you.

Congrats on your marriage!

Hiring family friends to shoot your wedding was mistake number one. Always vet your vendors fully, and anticipate that hiring non-professionals is going to result in non-professional results. Even if you know someone who is a pro, you need to vet them the same as you would any other vendor to make sure they are the right fit for what you want.

Also even if you give a shot list to your photographers it is still your responsibility to make sure portraits include all the people you want - you know who your guests are, your photographers do not. They have zero idea who bought your dress or what your grandmother looks like, so you need to be really intentional about photographs with certain people. There is also a reasonable amount of requests to make; but if you have an extensive list of shots you would like and you prioritize them all the same, some will inevitably get missed.

Basically, without knowing further details its difficult to fault the photographers in this situation. Do you like the quality of the photographs you were given? If so, I would lean towards having the same photographers reshoot those portraits for free. It will cost you the least amount of money to redo, and the editing and shooting style will match those of your other photos from your wedding, and therefore be easier to integrate into a wedding photo album or collage.

If you are unhappy with the photos in general - not just that some shots were missed - then I would consider hiring a different photographer. Do keep in mind that the photos shot by someone else are likely to have a slightly different look and feel than the ones already done. Even if you do your hair and makeup the same, there will be some discrepancies (regardless of photographer you pick) and these might be more obvious with a different photographers style than if you use the same photographer.

To clarify, it's not necessarily wrong to hire people you know, just important to screen them the same way you would any other pro and hold them to the same standards throughout the selection process. The additional information you provided in your response was helpful for getting a better picture of the whole situation. If your family has hired them for events in the past and has a professional working relationship with them, then it totally makes sense that you would consider them for your wedding, and I can see why you would be surprised that they missed those shots. I'm really sorry you are disappointed by the outcome and may have to go through the hassle of a reshoot.

Have you been able to speak with the photographers directly, or is the information you are relaying coming through your mom? If you haven't chatted with them, I'd cut out the middle woman and have a conversation with the photographers yourself - it will give you a better sense of how they feel about the situation, accommodating a second shoot, etc. I feel like you will be able to get a better sense of a genuine "we're truly sorry, our bad, we want to make it right" vs "sure we will do a reshoot but this is a giant PITA" vibe, which might help you feel a little more confident about investing time and money into a reshoot. If you love the rest of your photos and otherwise have no complaints with how they handled your wedding, then a reshoot seems like the best option here.

Also, did you get your full set of photos back? Two weeks is an unusually quick turnaround, so its possible there are some photos you didn't see (but being family friends and all I could see them editing your whole wedding sooner than they would a typical client). Its also unlikely they would offer a reshoot if they had usable shots that just didn't make it into the final edit they sent you. I think speaking with the photographers directly should happen before you do a reshoot regardless!