Okay, goodness there are so many paths to this story. For the sake of time I am going to keep it as short as possible, but also need to get across how disappointing this whole experience has been with our photographer. Who has now suggest that we take her to court.. SHE suggested this. It’s insane.
So, we booked our photographer August of 2018 for our June wedding. We paid 1,650 for 8 hours of photography WITH a second shooter, an engagement session with a minimum of 50 photos, and we were contracted to get our photos back by 12 maximum. (Its been 14…still no photos, let’s get the chase there)
Here are our issues.. we did not get a minimum of 50 photos of our engagement, we got 42 exactly. She rescheduled our engagement shoot as well. We were supposed to have it Mid October and planned to send out Save the Dates as Chritmas cards. We ended up having our shoot at the end of November and didn’t get our photos back for 6 weeks.. so early January. Keep in mind as well she promised a 3 week turnaround on the engagement.. we went double that and had many ignored attempts and she even, at one point, shut her site down entirely. Never reached out to us to explain this situation, just put it back up one day and sent us our pictures when the holidays had passed.
We reached out a few times post getting our engagement pictures back. Mostly to keep her up to date on the ceremony time we chose, the ceremony site we picked, and just general knowledge on wedding day timeline so she could plan accordingly. A few more times her Instagram (what we booked her from and through) was being shut down and put back up. She left texts, e mails, and DMs unresponded. Cut to a couple weeks before the wedding we asked her for a meeting to update the contract with start and end times, get a name of the second shooter she contracted us, and also to just let her know that the experience with her had been sketchy up to know and that we had some concerns she would even show up to the wedding. She granted us this meeting, we set a time and date.. it comes to 15 minutes before and she tries to cancel. Saying all of these questions can be resolved over a phone call. We were already at the coffee house we were meeting her at so we explained that we would much rather see her in person and address these issues.
The meeting all in all went very well. I felt a bit more comfortable. She upped her minimum amount of photos for wedding day (200) to a solid 300 but verbally told us we would be getting back NO LESS than 800 edited photos, she just keeps the number low in case of any emergencies, it made sense to us. She the told us she still didn’t have a for sure second shooter and that she would get back to us in a couple of days with that and also send over the updated contact.
This comes and goes. No updated contract sent (we never got this btw) and all of the names of second shooters she promised us at booking and at the updated contract meeting started changing from well known photographers in our area to names I did not recognize.
This is getting long so I am going to cut to the chase.. we never had a second shooter show up. She said she booked one and she was in a car accident the morning of the wedding. She told me about this lack of second shooter too minutes before I walked down the aisle.. So even though I personally know a few other photographers myself, we weren’t give the opportunity to hire another. We have now gone 14 weeks without our photos with multiple (and I mean like 10) times of a promised date. “I will be there Sunday!” “I will be there tonight!” “I will upload the gallery online with a download link today!” are all examples of what I mean by promised dates.
So, I’m sure I’m leaving tons of tidbits out. But I am a bride with tons of missing photos. (Dad walking me down the aisle, groom reaction, bridesmaid getting ready photos, detail shots, all examples.. because she can’t be in two places at once)
Does anyone have any advice? We spoke with her last night and tried to air our grievances.. she just suggested we take her to small claims if we want compensation back for all that we were contracted to and have yet to recieve. Has this happened to anyone else? Any lawyers with advice or any photogrpahers with how I can right this situation? I mostly want my photos and a huge apology. It isn’t even about the money. But if we go to court that is what we will be expecting.. and what is a fair amount to fight for?
I am at a loss. Any help is so appreciated.
Bri
