<p>Would like some advice from some of you who may have had brides that want more than what they paid for. I think I know what my next steps should be, but I'd like to know if I missed something or should be aware of some legal issue here.<br /><br />I was asked to help a friend out with photographing a wedding, but now we're having some issues with the bride. I currently work for a portrait studio so most of my work is senior portraits, and I had never done a wedding before this one. However, I was very confident that this would be a great way for me to get some practice in as I would like to do some more wedding work in the future. My friend has been assisting a big photographer/videographer in DC, so she's not new to the wedding scene but this was her first time being in charge of the pics herself. We both felt confident in our ability to get this done professionally and were also excited by the outcome when it was all done. There were some things my friend and I decided that next time we would do differently, but otherwise things were fantastic. Bride and MOB seemed happy when we handed them the final product, but then fast forward a few months and now we're having some issues with the bride. I'll just bullet some of the key points here.</p> <p>-My friend is related somewhat to the bride. I personally will never ever do weddings for a close(ish) friend or family. This is a step-cousin that my friend is not very close to, though, so she thought it would be ok.</p> <p>-There was no contract. I told my friend this would be important but it just didn't happen and honestly, I thought it wouldn't matter given the way they seemed to like everything.</p> <p>-The details of the agreement ARE DOCUMENTED via email and a physical list written down together in both the bride's and my friend's hand. This includes what we charged, what the final product would be, and what would be photographed.</p> <p>-My friend charged $1200 for this, which included 8 hrs of both of us there and 300 edited hi-res photos on 2 discs. Given our area's going rates (not to mention my boss's, whose family-run business has been doing this for 40+ years), this is a really good deal, and I see it as my friend giving the "family discount/bridal gift" thing.</p> <p>-We ended up giving her a few shy of 400 photos within the time frame discussed. Everything on her written list was photographed. There was one hiccup where one shot she wanted with her, her son, hubby, and her dad was NOT taken, but it was requested separately and in passing in a text to my friend. I tried to rectify that by manipulating some photos and after having a few people look they couldn't tell that I had essentially made 3 photos into one. We did ask at the time if there were others she wanted and she said no, so even she forgot she wanted that shot.</p> <p>- We have been paid in full per the agreement.</p> <p>The bride wasn't bad during the time we were there and everyone seemed very grateful that we were doing as much as we did. Since it was somewhat my friend's family, they were very helpful to tell us about shots they thought she might like, and everyone was having a great time so we got a lot of fantastic candid shots. In all honesty, we had too much trouble cutting it down to 300 because there were a lot of really good ones we we didn't want to throw away and some that were hilarious (but not seriously ones we would choose over the other good ones) so we added them in because we thought they might get a laugh out of them. As I said, we gave almost 100 more than we promised them. Now the bride is upset because she didn't get more.</p> <p>The bride so far has complained to her mother (the one who ultimately paid us, actually) that firstly there weren't enough of this other cousin and his latest girlfriend dancing (we explained that they're kids, and it wasn't their wedding so we didn't focus on them), and that she didn't get to pick the ones she wanted (never part of our deal). She thought she would have more and so she is demanding more. The mother then relayed this to my friend via email, and also had the gall to tell my friend how she should run herself as a professional photographer in the future, something about never telling a customer how many photos will be taken or given and how we should have sat down with them before the wedding (which we did...and we have the original paper listing the photos we were to take).</p> <p>So finally, I get down to my questions: Has anyone dealt with something like this, and if so, how did you handle it? Since we didn't have a contract but everything is written down in pieces that we can still prove our agreement, are we obligated to do anything else? My gut tells me no, and I'm sure my boss will too when I run it by him, but is there anything else I might have missed? Are we actually obligated to ever show the bride the photos before choosing the best ones (you know, the ones we as artists see as our best work and aren't blurry/wrongly exposed/repetitive)? Are we obligated to still provide the other photos we didn't like, even if they pay for them (which I'm tempted to suggest), or can we say nope and end any further business transactions with them ever again?</p> <p>Thanks for your help!</p>
