My photographer notified me last week that she was terminating our contract. At that point, my wedding was 10 weeks away. Her husband is in the military and they were being relocated overseas, which I view as a very understandable reason for not being able to provide services, obviously.
However, we had already paid this person in full per the terms of our contract with her. Per our contract the deposit we paid to hold the date is non-refundable, but in the event that the photographer does not perform the responsibilities outlined in the contract, we are only responsible to pay for work she has performed.
Since she sent me the termination notice last week, I have been unable to get in touch with her about getting our money back. She is not responding to emails, and the contact number I have for her no longer works. She’s taken her phone number off her website. However, she’s advertising that she’s going to be picking her business back up in their new location. I’m really upset by the way we have been treated by someone who touts herself as a professional in the industry.
I’m really irritated by the non-refundable deposit, too, because I’ve always understood that as a vendor’s protection in case we cancel and they are unable to fill the date. I never really considered how that leaves us high and dry if the vendor is the one that cancels. But, I signed the contract, so… *sigh*.
I’m trying to be human about the fact that she just had to move her entire family to the other side of the world on short notice, and give her time to respond. But… we are out a lot of money. And to get a replacement on short notice we wound up paying quite a bit more than we originally budgeted. The way I see it, if we can’t get in touch with her we don’t have a whole lot of recourse at this point. Has anybody run into this or something similar and gotten your money back? Am I being too pushy?
