After 4 months, we STILL don't have our wedding pictures.
Can you believe that? FOUR months and nothing, not even our proofs. I've been hoping to resolve this for a few weeks now, but sadly it looks like it's finally gotten to me. What makes it worse is that we had finally gotten a hopeful response last week, but then THAT failed as well.Is it that hard to ask for something you've paid for a YEAR in advance?
Seriously, we're not talking about anything genius here. They're pictures. You take them, develop them, and then give them to the exuberant bride or groom. Here's the dilly so far:
- Mid-June: Back from our honeymoon, we ask how long it may take. His response? 6-8 weeks.
- Mid-August: "It's taken a bit longer to develop the black & white images. A cple more weeks go go" First off, i'm fairly certain it doesn't take that much longer (if at all) to develop B&W over color, and ESPECIALLY not for the 4x5 proofs! I asked my sister who works for a photographer doing weddings herself, and they didn't buy it.
- Early Sep: "I'll call you this week so we can meet up and go over it all". Nothing that week. nor the next. nor the next.
- Sep 11th - I call and leave a calm but important message on his cell phone. no response.
- Sep 13th - Text him "What's the deal, bro?" hoping to get anything at all back. nothing.
- Sep 16th - The Mrs. calls him and leaves a message. nothing again.
- Sep 18th - The Mrs. emails him:
"D-head (edited),
What's going on? You haven't returned our phone calls/voicemails to you and I haven't heard from you since Sept.1 when you indicated you'd be calling me that week.
We'd really just like to see our proofs. I've been asking for them for months now and have received numerous indications from you that they would be forthcoming, but we have still not received them.
The only thing we've seen at all so far has been a few pictures on Facebook. Though we enjoyed seeing those, we waited until 3 months after our wedding to catch a glimpse of 13 pictures, whereas the other wedding you posted had taken place one day prior and they had 3 times as many pictures up. Clearly, we are not a priority for you right now but this is becoming increasingly frustrating--and disappointing. Our wedding pictures are important to us and we'd really like to see how they turned out.
I would really appreciate the courtesy of receiving some communication from you as to what's going on regarding our proofs, and when we can expect to receive them. We're approaching 4 months from our wedding date at this point.
Mrs. Budgetsaresexy (edited)" - Sep 25th - Success! An email into Facebook AND gmail. AWESOME! And as much as i'd LOVE to post his sad story of a response, there's too many details that would give up who it is :( I did think about it though ;) He did, however, say he'll be in town for a few days (he said he moved), and will stop by early Sunday morning to review it together.
- Sep 28th, Sunday - No show. We call him at 1pm and he calls back, clearly aggitated, stating he'll drop it off during the day, even if we're not at home. And surprise, surprise, he didn't.
- Sep 28th, evening - The mrs. leaves a voicemail asking for an update. nothing. i text him a "still stopping by?" text as well, but nothing again.
- Sep 29th, evening - I repeatedly try calling him from 7pm-10pm but phone appears turned off - i didn't leave a message...and that's where we are today.
- UPDATE: Sep 30th, morning - The Mrs. emails him again,
"D-head (edited),
Your phone has either been not working or turned off for the last 2 days, and again, we've left a number a messages. You never showed up on Sunday. Can we please get a status update on the proofs???" - UPDATE: Sep 30th, evening - I call him every hour, on the hour, for 4 hours straight. just rings and rings and then hits vmail (better than just going straigth there i suppose). I leave one message stating that i basically just want him to drop them off before leaving town, and that i can care less about the reasoning behind it. I also say a call/email/text/facebook/myspace message or whatever is fine. Just make contact.
- UPDATE: Oct 1st, morning - Nothing yet...will wait until tomorrow, and then it's on.
- UPDATE: Oct 1st, afternoon - He emailed us back! but it's not good...
I think the worst of it all, though, is that i'm starting to wonder if something's just wrong with the pics? Like, perhaps they came out horribly? Or maybe his team accidently erased them or something? I'm sure they were all digital, so who knows what's possible.
Whew, that felt good! Thanks for listening, and/or skimming ;) All in all it's not the worst thing going on these days (bailout anyone?), but it certainly is at the top of my $hit list. And if we never get them? Well, at least we've got plenty of other pics from our friends and family that portray the beautiful day! We're certainly not going to let it "ruin" the wedding.
I'll keep ya posted...
Labels: cockamamy indeed, rant, wedding
posted by J. Money at
11:19 AM
30 Comments:
Arrggghhh squared! I'm at the end of my rope!
AND the chronology was actually more like:
originally promised 2-4 weeks after WEDDING.
June 30, I check in: he says 2 more weeks.
I wait a full month, check again Aug 6: he says "next week".
He emails Aug 15 and asks for a wedding invitation to do "one more thing", which I send him.
Next contact=Sept. 1, "he'll call this week"...and you know what happened from there.
Not to mention I DID call and leave him a message yesterday, in addition to Sunday/your text messages.
I'm going to throttle him!!!
Oh and btw, our contract lists the ready-date for the proofs as roughly July 15. We're 2 and a half months past that at this point...and still going.
Yikes! Hopefully it works out for you guys. Wedding pictures are not exactly something that you can recreate once the moment has passed. It sure sounds like he must be having some kind of problem with the pictures!
argh is right. have you already paid him? check or credit card? is his business registered anywhere? friends don't get a break for sloppy work...
Have you considered the possibility that there are no photos?
Forget the former friendship - time to sue in small claims court.
Thx for stepping in baby, i knew i was missing some stuff!
yeah, i *really* hope things are in tact, but as time goes on i'm really questioning that. i guess we could always play dress up and have some pix taken, but that's pretty lame.
And yup, we already paid last year via check i believe. Believe me, as soon as we get to the bottom of this, $hits gonna fly. We just have to make sure to not lose it (even more) and have him do something on purpose to screw us over....ESP if they are all in tact right now, ya know?
fingers crossed!
Oh man... I was just there last year. Our photo dude took FOREVER to get ours done. He sucked... his portfolio looked great, but majority of our pictures sucked. The one saving grace was that he took about 2000 pictures so we were able to pick out a bunch that looked good.
I hope that Mr. Toughmoneylove is wrong. You should get some sort of discount though... did you pay the idiot yet?
To avoid having to rely on him to get prints made, ask for digital copies of all of the images (digital negatives). This way you can print yourself. Or take to another photographer and maybe they could do touch ups/prints/albums.
We bought the digital negatives from our photographer instead of paying for pricey prints. Good luck!
Sorry to hear this! We had a similar issue with our weedding photographer (who I still hate and get mad when I hear her name or think about it). Our situation wasn't quite as bad as yours, althouh your pictures may come out better than ours did, so I hope so for your sake! Good luck!
OMGosh how frustrating!! This makes me think that when I get married I better have a clause in my contract with the photographer on a time limit to receive my pictures. I have heard about this type of situation too many times. It's so unprofessional. I would be filing a lawsuit soon.
Eek, all around.
I'm a year or more away from my wedding, and curious about any photog-booking tips you'd have after your as-yet-unresolved bad experience.
Good luck. At least you have a contract...keep track of everything...I hope the pictures are around and he's just being lazy!
I think it might be time to let him know that you are speaking with a laywer and are considering taking him to small claims court.
You have a contract and so far he is not honoring that.. and you will never be able to get those photos back! Ever!
P.S. Congrats on the wedding!
i would be PIIIISSSSSED. seriously. when my husband and i got married, it only took my photographer a WEEK to get everything put onto a DVD for us, and printed out and put into a nice album. seriously.
i hope for your sake (and his!) that nothing happened to the photos! that would be horrible. and you'd have some ass kicking to do. no joke.
wow, yeah I'd be angry. Sounds like we all got married around the same time.
We got back at the end of May (mid-May wedding) and kept meaning to call the photog as we tried to get back into the swing of things here. (The place was a huge mess and gifts were stacked everywhere.)
Anyway, SHE called US within two weeks of our being back. Granted, we didn't ask for any retouching or special stuff (we know someone who can do it for us if we want it). But she had the CDs, the pics, everything -- all within a month of the wedding.
I'm sure plenty of people have mentioned this to you already, but I would seriously ask for a discount.
Remind him there are plenty of wedding website forums that you can voice your two cents. You'd hate to drive away business based on what you're sure is just a one-time bad experience.
But if he won't compensate you for a) the lag, b) the frustration of waiting and c) the stress from the haranguing you're getting from family & wedding guests to get copies... Well, you'll just have to make sure to let potential customers of his know about these obstacles that you encountered so they can make an informed decision.
And since you have a breach of contract, you could probably take him to small claims court (or threaten to) if he doesn't want to give you a discount.
J. Money,
That sucks! I hope it all works out. On a similar note, the company that did our wedding cake had a deal where they make you fresh little cake on your 1 year anniversary. My wife was so excited because we barely had a bite of cake during our wedding. When she called a week before our anniversary, they were totally rude and basically said they don't have time to make the same favored cake we had at the wedding. Rather than settling for something we didn't want, we decided to tell them forget it, and then told all of our friends getting married not to use them (even though they loved the cake at our wedding). Sweet revenge.
-1ManMoney
I'd be checking my contract if I was you to see what me rights are. What a tool! And a disappointing turn out from a 'friend'. Hopefully he's just going through some personal stuff and there's nothing wrong with your photos. Good luck! :)
You guys have been to nice and professional to him but he hasn't returned the favor. You should have a straight up conversation with him where you set a deadline or he will be taken to court. It's that simple.
Wow, that's so awesome that some of you got yours within a cple weeks! I thought we'd be that lucky at first cuz the guy seemed pretty prefessional through the entire thing really. It's like he just slammed on the brakes all of a sudden and took off w/out another thought. F'er.
I def. appreciate everyone's comments and advice! once we (hopefully) get a hold of him, i'll surely be asking for some compensation - knowing i can drop that suing card at any point!
It's def. true that we're nicer and more understanding than we should be at this point, but unfort. he's holding the once-in-a-lifetime pics in the palms of his hands and we cant risk losing them forever...that, and he claims to have moved halfway across the coutry.
I can tell you this though, if we are at the same point next week, it's on b*tches! I can get pretty damn crafty on viral anti-marketing ;)
This would have totally driven me mad. I asked my coworker who is big into Flickr to take our wedding pictures and she brought another Flickrite with her. They did a fabulous job and didn't ask for a cent. She wanted to make every photo perfect and was taking forever to get the photos to us. I'm talking 10 days = forever. Finally she gave them all to us. I hope you get your photos soon. He could at least give you the digital copies. I don't think any photographer uses old fashioned film anymore.
This is an awful story and I could imagine the frustration you guys are going through.
I went to a wedding back in July and found out that the photographer that took their pics had a full memory card and didn't know it. Soooo.... all the pics that they took from the whole ceremony didn't even save.
Needless to say, the bride and groom were furious and are begging everyone that went to the wedding for the pictures that they took with their own cameras.
@ mrs accountability - wow, that is awesome! flickrites are crazy cool, good work on that ;) and yeah, he's been saying our online pics should be uploaded "any day now" which is making matters worse, as it's been weeks since THAT started...soon to post more about it :(
@ christine - OMG that is horrible!!! that is our fear at this point, that he's just prolonging some horrible piece of news like that. my girl will seriously lose it if that happens...as will i ;)
We went through the same thing! I know exactly how frustrated you guys must be... To make things worse, our photographer was also responsible for the DVD.
I had to fill out a complaint with the Better Business Bureau - that's how bad it was. I am guessing that they contacted him; one day my photos (more than we paid for), DVD (more copies than we paid for) and a nice card (yes, a card!!) showed up.
Did you consider contacting the Better Business Bureau??
that blows! i'm sorry you had to put up with that $hit too, but awesome that you finally got them :)
how long did you have to wait after filing the complaint to get them? we haven't done it yet, but it's certainly on the list.
At least 3 months, if not longer. And then the other day we get this "if you know someone who is getting married and looking for a photographer" card in the mail. Yea.. I don't have to tell you where that card ended up!
Good luck and keep us posted on what's going on!
As the husband of a wedding photographer, all I can say is "Wow!" We've had some goofy stuff come up, but nothing like this.
Photographers like this one give everyone else a bad rap.
Hopefully small claims court will help motivate him to get his act together...and to pick a new profession.
Good luck!
did you get the pictures yet?! I'm in the same situation! Our wedding was 4 months ago and our photographer is totally blowing us off...after originally saying 4-6 weeks. I am really getting scared!!
I hope you have a happy ending...
Anonymous - I'm SO SORRY you guys are dealing with something similar!! The worst is when they cut off all communication whatsoever....we haven't received our pictures yet, even online OR in print, and i'm actually now working on a blog to market all over the net to warn people about his company.
I figured as long as that site is up, and i can get it high on the search results, he'll be more inclined to send them over at which point i'll take it down asap.
GOOD LUCK with YOUR stuff!
keep up the fight! I definitely need to start fighting the battle....I'll follow your example...good luck!
Have you gotten your pictures yet?
Same thing is happening to us. We were married in July 2008 and it's now January 2009 and no pictures. She sends an email two weeks ago that she is closing her studio and moving across the country and has no phone anymore can only be reached via email, but she won't respond to the emails.
Like you i want to threaten to sue her, but I am also trying to play nice since she has the photos of one of the most important days of our life in her control. It SUCKS!
I'm SO sorry that you have to deal with the same stuff :( It's not fun! But YES - we finally got our pics! Click on the link for the update and what we had to do in order to get them - it took some work, but it paid off in the end ;)
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