Major Wedding Issue for Saturday

I've a set of negs from a couple of years back. The bride was "asked by her Mom" to pick the 5x7s for the album. Mike (the groom) was not there...fast forward a couple of months. Still no review by Mike, the bride could not decide. A couple more months go by.... I wrote the bride's Mom_thank you, I now have a tax write off.

 

 

 

Then the groom's Mother calls: "will you take $100 for the negatives?" Sure, when I call you back. She is still waiting.

 

 

 

 

Some folks do not really understand that shooting a wedding is "work" and not in the same category of Uncle Mort trying out his camera.

 

 

 

You should have held firm at the original price. Then go ahead and shoot the wedding__but do not release anything until you get paid in full. Be prepared to show "proofs" to the bride-and-groom, and be prepared to take the "proofs" home with you -- until their order is made. [There is nothing 'wrong' with providing a album__just be sure to have "Mom" inital the contract that the price will be increased with the added item, i.e., the album.]

I wouldn't show up or return the $200. You've already earned the $200. You'll make a lot more money suing the TV station if they run a story trying to ruin your business and destroy your reputation.

Wow-ee. Soap opera of photo.net! In all my thirteen years of shooting, I've been fortunate never to have had a bad client. I wait with abated breath on how this ends up. What a story!

My point was simply, if they are into power negotiating, they don't hold all the cards. They probably don't have another photographer and almost certainly don't have time to acquire an acceptable replacement.

Al beat me to it .. Slander and defamation suits are hard to win, but at least in California, you don't have to prove damages if your business reputation is slandered, which lowers the bar quite a bit. I wouldn't worry too much about the TV station running a "Brady Sucks" special. They have their own lawyers that will probably veto a bad-business piece that's about a person experience of the producers.

Is anyone else (LOL) Dying to read Brady's next post??????

wow, my how very interesting, this sounds like a bride who called me for the same thing and todays date as well, which i didn't have open, actually leaving soon for a wedding myself, but fast forward, i just realized that you are in rochester, ny... just like myself, haha. now I have to wonder if it was that same bride or not... hmm. under 21 as well huh;) saw your site you've got some great work, drop me a line sometime i'd love to talk studio403@gmail.com

Ooooh! I can't wait! What Happens? Will our man emerge from the fracas with camera and

sanity intact?! Will he take Al's advice and tell them to stuff it on National Television?! I

can't wait! I'll have to check in after my wedding today (thankfully a great couple).

Oh come on it's after midnight east coast. And no update this is starting to kill me!!!!

 

he better have been tied up and stuffed in a closet!

 

Or ran off with the maid of honor something I need something

Mark, only in the Canadian Maritime provinces. In the continental U.S. it's still not midnight yet. You've been living on the west coast too long...LOL

Stay up for just a few more minutes. I am typing my response in word right now and you don't want to miss it.

We're waiting!

OK, I am back from the wedding. As if this topic wasn't long enough already I am going to be adding three full MS Word pages, so get your eyeglasses. To anyone who thought it could not get worse, grab a drink and read on. I wish I were making this stuff up, but it all amounts to one of the worst days that I can recall in a long time...

 

I show up to the hotel early like planned, I am supposed to meet the Mother of the Bride in the lobby. I wait 15 minutes and she does not show up. I go to the desk and get her room number, I then visit her in her room and we go over the contract. She tells me the details and I fill them in, I have her initial next to 6 trillion clauses and surprisingly SHE PAYS, half of the total amount in cash.

 

I wait in the lobby for a few minutes and witness a relative to this couple verbally abusing the valet parking attendant, as she insists that he parked her car and he says that they do not have the keys. She yells at him and he just keeps saying that they don't have the keys to her rental car. Eventually she storms out and I photograph the preparation.

 

Assistant A is booked because I could not give him enough notice, fair enough as it was less than 24 hours. I call assistant B and he is obligated to shoot the local soccer team tonight. Well, not great but I have no problem working alone. The bride asks where my assistant is and I say that he won't be available.

 

I photograph the daughter getting ready and then I get set to go to the ceremony. The bridal party and family leave 15 minutes before the bride and her sister. I wait for the bride and sister to leave to photograph their exit. I walk back to my car and go to the venue... UH OH

 

I pull into PLACE A and walk up to the desk and ask how I get to the wedding. They look at me and say, "There is no wedding here today sir." I say, "WHAT! My contract says that I have to be here in 25 minutes for an outdoor wedding." She says "There is not a wedding here today, if there was I would know."

 

The ceremony is at a museum/gallery (of which there are many in Rochester) and I go to the next logical one, PLACE B. I ask how do I get to the outdoor wedding ceremony. They tell me that there is no wedding here, I say, "Please check", she says, "We don't do weddings here." I say OK and leave.

 

I go on to PLACE C and ask the person at the front desk (a person I know rather well). She says that there are no ceremonies scheduled for today but portraits in the evening. I ask her to call PLACE D for me and she does. They say they have a wedding scheduled for 3:30 (it is currently 3:27pm). She asks if their wedding photographer is missing and the person on the phone doesn't know. I go over there and walk in and it is the wrong family.

 

I go back to PLACE A, which is the one on my contract, I walk around the grounds and there is no outdoor wedding. I drive back to the hotel and ask for help. Fortunately since the hotel arranged for the transportation they have a record of it. They point me in the right direction, PLACE E...

 

Now for the irony:

 

The ceremony turns out to be on the other side of the street less than a mile away. I drive there and as I get out of my car the wedding party starts the receiving line. OK, now I get worried, not only did I have the wrong location in my contract but I missed the ceremony because of it. I cover all of the family interaction that I can but the ceremony is a lost hope, as the receiving line is so big and we have limited time before we need to go to the reception.

 

They don't know yet (and I am not about to tell them... why ruin the rest of the photos with tears) and we begin to take the formal portraits. I set my Domke F2 loaded with all of my 35mm and digital gear except for 1-D70, 1-SB800, 1-50mm f-1.4, 1-2gb CF card, 1 set of AA batteries and one battery for the D70. We start to shoot and we move through the garden. When it is time to swap out gear MY BAG IS GONE. Certainly I am nervous about the value of gear lost, but my main concern is that I now only have 5 batteries for my SB800, 1 for my D70, 1-lens (which is not wide enough or long enough on the D70, but it is fast YES ONE WIN!), 1-2gb CF card and no backup anything. I play it cool and keep on working, just standing back about 50 feet for the huge wedding party. I get to the reception and ask the video guys if the may have grabbed an extra bag. We look through their stuff and it is not there. The wedding planner overheard this and had me make an announcement, so all night long I had people asking me what was so special about my lost bag? OBVIOUSLY THE 10 GRAND IN GEAR INSIDE!

 

I shoot with what I have because I have no real option other than that. I used to shoot weddings in 35mm with a 50mm f-1.4 for most of my shots, so I just need to give a little more distance. This is going well, I am as creative as I can be considering that I have a short tele stuck to my camera. The flash is slowly recharging now as it has been fired a lot. At this point the wonderful (I mean that sincerely) video guys turn on several 250 watt halogen lights and the room is now 1/30th, f-2.8 ISO 400 (YES I WIN ANOTHER ONE!) so my flash doesn't have to work too hard since I can open up to f-1.4. We do the toasts and everything is great.

 

I sit down to dinner and have a great conversation with the two video guys and the aunt of the bride. The aunt of the bride tells me to hand business cards out to everyone because she is sure that my work will be great, I use the excuse that they are in my missing bag. While the photos are great, when they find out the issue with the ceremony I will want my name as far away from this one as I can.

 

We shoot the traditional things and everything is fine. There are 2 video guys and me, but we typically stay out of each others way. I decide to stay for the whole reception since I was sent to the wrong place for the ceremony. I get all I need and leave.

 

On my way out one of the guests tells me that a security guard picked up my bag at the ceremony and that I need to contact them to get it. I appreciate the tip and I have one of my friends grab it for me, as I don?t want to deal with the issue anymore tonight. My friend calls and says that everything is in the bag, so things are improving.

 

Ok people, I think we should do a fundraiser:

 

1) Email me the best photo of a ceremony that you took and I will send it to the Bride and Groom in place of theirs.

 

2) I will put up a paypal link on my website and we can all donate to fund the "Wedding from Hell" legal effort.

 

3) I will put up a paypal link on my website and we can all donate to fund the "Brady needs long term Dr Phil style care" effort.

 

I am going to try to take care of this as best I can, who knows what will happen though. The contract was filled out in my hand writing (even the wrong location part) but it is signed, initialed and dated by the Mother of the Bride as well as me. I will likely contact a lawyer on Monday or Tuesday to see what I need to do next. Whoever said above that this wedding will cost me more than it's worth was dead right.

 

I think we should all save this link and the next time someone asks about shooting their first wedding in 3 days we can show them the ugly side to work. Don't get me wrong, I think it is important to teach and encourage people, but they should see that while rare, large issues do occur and need to be dealt with. I have been shooting and assisting for five years without a single major incident and now tonight almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

 

While this is certainly a bad scenario I will always seek comfort in this story from the photographer who taught me. During his first wedding he had his TLR set to flash bulb mode instead of electronic flash mode and so there was ZERO flash sync, the couple had no usable photos.

 

Side note, I photographed at a life skills and football skills camp put on by a local NFL player this morning. The video guy who was filming the event was the same one who was at the wedding.

 

Chris, I think we need to set up a screening network in Rochester. No one should ever unknowingly take one of these weddings.

<I>Also we will be given you guys a gift certificate to the bar area.</I><P> Oh, whoop-de-do. Don't people realize that a professional would no more drink on the job than the bride would wear a red wedding dress? <P>Waiting with bated breath for the rest of the story.

Okay, the rest of the story came in before I posted my last. Even if Brady decided to use the bar certificate (and who could blame him) the time just wasn't there. What a real bummer. Are these people that stupid not to give him the correct location of the wedding? I think I would ask that to them diretly.

oh man I feel for you! That is just insane! So they actually gave you the wrong location for the ceremony?! What's wrong with these people?!

 

I dont know what to say other than I'm sorry... lol.. and hold on for the ride... hopefully it just goes away... but that's doubtful. Keep us posted.

Talk with your attorney on Monday as planned, but I suspect that the fact that she knowingly signed off on the contract with a wrong address on it should be enough to invalidate the contract. You got half your fee. Have your attorney contact her and offer to turn over the film and or a CD of the images in exchange for signing a formal release. Forget about making prints or supplying the album. You'll be ahead of the game!

I seriously agree, i mean i've ran into a couple (read, alot) when i stzrted working a few extra gigs for this other guy, he never payed more then 7 an hour and i was shooting the wedding, lol i always did my best, but handed out my card instead of his. but sorry about your bad day, they happen unfortently. I did like your site btw, it has some nice work on it, and it's easy to navigate. We should seriously get in touch sometime, i might even have an event to pass on soon it's around my 21st bday in aug and i certently won't be up to par ;)

 

chris

Wait a minute! "Gift certificate to the bar area"? So people are invited to a wedding and have to pay (for drinks). Oh this is a classy group. Did they charge for seats to the mud bog race?

Actually, now that i'm thinking about this i had like the same EXACT thing happen to me once, had this lady contact me for her wedding, i got the deposit and that was it... then 2 days before the wedding i get a call asking about it, i told her she never signed my contract or anything so i mailed the check back, she said thats why she's calling, and she meet with me that day to sign the contract. she didn't have the right time or addresses or anything! so i just happened to know the limo driver and drove with him all night, haha, but i ony got half the money at the wedding, i tried calling her after the wedding, because i had her prints and i wanted my money, well she had changed her number. luckly her sister works at strong as do I. So i have her sis contact the bride and she still never called me back, we're talking 6 months at this point. I finally get ahold of her and she doesn't have the money to pay! side note, still have the images, 10 months now, from now on I never take the money unless it's ALL up front. and i need a prelim. contract with all the info of EVERYONE involved, contact information and EVERYTHING. I wonder if it's just rochester brides, haha

I could throw up I'm so nervous for you. Instead I'll have more wine while my photos batch...an extra large helping since you're too young to have your own. I wonder if the video guys could give you some stills from the ceremony. I have no idea what res they are but if you could squeak a few 4x6s out it might save you...

Brady, you have your hands full. I am so sorry.

Brady,

 

Did you say you're under 21? If so, you have many years of wedding photography left. Are you sure you want to continue (even if you're over 21!)?

 

I have had a few minor glitches over the past 15 years, but nothing as painful as your experience.

 

I truly think you should have dropped the wedding when you had the first clue of problems (a dysfunctional family situation).

 

Just as the client has the right to accept or refuse your services, you have the right to turn down a wedding if you think all is not right or that you will not be able to work constructively with the client.

 

Recently, on this forum, we have had many postings regarding serious problems, either with equipment issues or with horror stories regarding the event itself.

 

To be blunt, all of this is causing me to rethink if it is worth the effort to photograph such events.

 

If we need to have an attorney on-call when we do wedding photography, it's not worth it.

 

I hope all goes will with you on this.

Brady,

 

I tried to open your web site but was told the URL could not be found on this server. Do you have a new or current URL? I'd like to see some of your wedding photography.

 

I just can't imagine that all those problems could happen to one person at a single wedding. It would make a good plot for a humorous novel or short story.

 

Why didn't you simply cancel the booking instead of trying to make a heroic effort to photograph the wedding? I would strongly suggest that you don't do that again.

 

I appreciate your story since it helps me realize when I should say "No."

Todd, try: www.bradydillsworth.com