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Wedding photographer won’t give us our wedding photos
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Hi all,
I got married earlier this year and I had a Galway based photographer. We paid him in full on the day of our wedding. Sine the wedding which is now 11 weeks ago, he refuses to answer my calls, will not reply to voice mails, text messages or emails. On the rare occasions that he did answer my calls, he told me lies like, “I sent you the photos of CD”, “I never got your texts”, “I never got your voice mail”, ” I replied to your email, did you not get it”? All of which are lies and I never got the CD in the post which I’m not certain he never sent in the first place.
He was paid in full on the day of our wedding but has not initiated any contact with me since the wedding day and it’s obvious that he is now trying to avoid any communication with me.
What can I do to get my photos from this guy? I paid him in cash on the day of our wedding and I had previously send him a 400euro deposit for which he gave me a receipt for. I really can’t understand why he can’t be honest and return my calls. Surely he has a business to run so he should try to have happy customers..
Has anyone else come across photographers like this, what rights do I have to follow up with this guy.
Any feedback is welcomed.
thanks.
Absolutely amazed by this post…was he a professional photographer that advertises locally or was he recommended to you ? Has he a business premises and has he done other wedding photos that you had seen ? The fact that you paid a deposit and got a receipt from him puts you in a great position….what I can’t understand is why he is telling you all these lies….either he deleted the photos or something very bad happened to them…either way he is going to have to face upto the problem eventually…more legal minded photographers might be able to give you a more informed answer as to how to go about this but I am still amazed at his attitude towards you….contact him again threatening legal action if he doesn’t come up with the photos…what was the contract between you when you first met…remember a verbal contract is as good as…a little harder to prove though than a written contract.
Noel Browne.
Thanks for the reply, ya I’ve very supprised myself to be honest. I found him online but he is a fairly well known photographer who has a website and facebook page with lots of previous years clients and samples of other weddings. He does not have a business premises. He had no issues communicating with me before the wedding, I even met him to discuss the kind of photos I’d like. There was no problems on the day, paid him in full but since then he has not tried to make contact once. He’s knows I’m concerned about our photos right now but still makes no attempt to get back to me… I am quite shocked, you don’t expect this from a photographer who claims to be a professional.
Yeah, he “claims to be a professional photographer”.
Your best bet, file a claim with the small claims court (as long as the value is under the small claims amount). That will either get him to get you the images or else get you your money back.
He may have had an accident with your images – lost, damaged, etc, which is why he is being evasive.
It is really a terrible thing to hear. Hopefully you will get it resolved.
I think you should act quickly at this stage. Can you go to his office/studio/home or wherever he works out of.
Ask him for a CD of the photos while you wait and tell him you are not leaving until you see them and get a copy of same.If he is unwilling to give you this he may well have inadvertently deleted them or had an equipment malfunction (corrupt memory card, hard disc crash, or whatever) He may just be unwilling to own up to that if he is unable to come up with a refund.
At that stage you can only sue him to get your money back and perhaps damages – get a solicitor. If he is on Facebook as you say he is you may also be able to publicly tell your story on Facebook thereby warning off any other potential clients. Only say the truth otherwise you could be sued for defamation.
If the photos are gone you will unfortunately not have photographic memory of the day. Contact all of the guests at you wedding and ask them to give you a copy of anything they have on their cameras. A compilation of snap shots taken by the guests will not be a professional job but if you are lucky they may have caught something of spirit of the day.
Best wishes
Wow, sounds like a pretty horrific experience. I’m Galway based myself and disappointed that someone in the area is giving you the runaround. How did you find his service on your wedding day……was he confident and reassuring? Did he seem in control of things?
Have you had contact in person with the photographer since the wedding? or has it been only by phone, e-mail, text etc? If not, I’d suggest doing so as soon as possible. This would allow him to show you the proofs of the photos. If he cannot produce these, you should talk to a solicitor. It’s possible that he had some sort of equipment failure on the day i.e. corrupt card, which might explain why he has been avoiding you, which would be unfortunate but understandable. It may be possible to recover the images so long he hasn’t re-written the card. I suggest remaining calm until you know exactly what his problem is, although it must be frustrating for you.
Thanks for the input guys. Unfortunately I don’t know where he lives. He has moved from the origional house I dropped the deposit to. He was professional on the day and waited until 11PM taking photos. I’ll look into the options you guys provided here and see how I can proceed. If he could be upfront if he had lost the photos etc, we could work around it but right now he won’t reply to my calls, texts or emails. I’ll certainly let my expienence with this photographer be publically know in due course is I can’t get my photos from him.
This is very very poor indeed. I hope you get some sort of resolution, hopefully with photographs !.
Out of interest how did you come across this person ?
Just let us know who he is and we can all have a look on Facebook for him.
Noel.
Sorry to hear you’re getting messed around like this.
I’m sure the images of your big day are of more importance than getting a refund, but it seems to me like what the other comments say is probably true, ie. he’s lost the images, either through equipment malfunction or some other problem.
However as a wedding is a one off, and any wedding photographer worth the name should have multiple copies. They should use two cameras, at least, with the second camera capturing the ‘essential’ images, along with the main camera. A camera like a Canon 1Ds2 or 1Ds3 is ideal, because it can write to two cards (SD and CF) together, thus giving three copies of all the essential wedding day images, before you even make back-ups.
I don’t know what the legal situation is, and I know the images are more important than getting your money back.
However, I do remember reading about a situation in England a while back, where a judge awarded a couple £3000, not because the photographer failed to supply any images, but because the images weren’t up to standard.
So, I’d imagine you definately have a strong case, should it go to court.
If he gave you a receipt for the deposit, that’s a good start, and I’m sure there’s plenty of people who were at the wedding who’d be willing to identify him as the wedding photographer on the day.
RogI am also Galway based Photographer & sorry to hear your plight.
The very first thing you got to do is NAME & SHAME here on this site & if nothing else keep other from engaging him to cover their Weddings.
You should highlight this on RTE Joe Duffy Show in the afternoons at least this will get him out of the woodworm & you get your pictures and see never works at Wedding Photography again.
Keep us posted at what happens please.Joe
http://www.joetravers.ie/” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.facebook.com/JoeTraversPhotography” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false;
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