Wedding photographer says ‘I don’t’ as she deletes photos in front of groom
Sep 21, 2021
Alex Baker
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
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It’s the stuff of nightmares: you’ve been asked by a close friend to photograph their wedding. You feel like you can’t say no, but you’re not a professional wedding photographer. So what do you do? One Reddit user said ‘I do’ to her friends, only to regret it bitterly during the actual event when a heated argument with the groom caused her to take extreme measures.
Reddit user Icy-Reserve6995 posted about the event in the ‘Am I the A**hole?‘ forum where users regularly ask advice on how they handled certain situations. She explained the situation saying that her friends had asked her to be the photographer for their wedding, which she had agreed to do for a meagre $250. She says she had originally been invited as a guest and so was expecting to be treated as such alongside taking some photographs for the couple. The couple, however, had very different expectations.
According to the post, she had been following the bride around all her appointments prior to the wedding from 11 am. By 5 pm the photographer had not taken a single break, and to her dismay was excluded from the seating plan during the reception. To add insult she was also expected to look after the couple’s young child while they enjoyed the meal.
“I was told I cannot stop to eat because I need to be a photographer; in fact, they didn’t save me a spot at any table,” she says, “I told the groom I need to take off for 20min to get something to eat and drink,” she said. “He tells me I need to either be a photographer or leave without pay. I asked if he was sure, and he said yes, so I deleted all the photos I took in front of him and took off saying I’m not his photographer anymore.”
I can only imagine the horror on the groom’s face when he realised what was happening, and even more so when he had to tell his new wife of the situation. It seems like a rather extreme way to handle a tricky situation but many Reddit users have voiced their support of the photographer. In fact, it turns out that she wasn’t even a photographer to begin with, but is a dog groomer who regularly takes photos of the dogs to post on social media.
I have shot a handful of weddings myself, though I would never call myself a wedding photographer. They are invariably long, tiring days of 12 hours or so on your feet. The last wedding I shot took me the whole weekend to recover from physically (hey I’m not 25 anymore!). There are very few people in the world that I love enough to want to shoot their wedding. But for those people, I would actually prefer to do so for free as a gift.
I think that this is the crux of this woman’s problem. When you do something for any amount of money, however low, it becomes a job, and the people hiring you have certain expectations about what you will do. If you absolutely must end up shooting a wedding or other event then it’s your job to educate them on those expectations. Here are a few things I have learnt that will make your life a little easier and will help towards avoiding bride or groomzilla hissy-fits.
- Make it known beforehand that you need x number of breaks during the day and you expect to be included in the meal as a guest (no one wants photos of themselves eating anyway).
- Making a simple timeline of the day will help organise everyone and make things run smoother. It’s unfortunate but often the photographer becomes the default wedding planner so making a simple timeline of the day beforehand will help everything run smoother.
- If you can, scout out the location beforehand. Find some nice spots to do the portraits and group photos because that will save you a lot of stress on the actual day when you have a million people to organise.
- If you’re working alone try to enlist a friend of the family who knows everyone to help you herd them into the correct places, particularly for the formal group photos. You don’t want to be running around trying to find Auntie Milly in the bar when you should be taking photos.
- If you’re charging money do think about how much time it takes to not only shoot the wedding but also edit the images afterwards. Whatever you agree to you have to honour, even if on the day you realise you’ve vastly undercharged. Yes, it sucks, but it’s a learning experience and you’ll know next time to either say no or charge accordingly.
Apparently, Icy-Reserve6995 is feeling somewhat remorseful after the fact. “In retrospect, I wasn’t thinking straight because now I’ve nothing to show for my wasted time,” she wrote in a follow-up post. “I just had to get out of there and make a point before I did.”
I think it was a bit of an extreme point, which could possibly have been avoided had she had a little more knowledge and experience. Unfortunately, now there are many unhappy people and friendships have been broken, although with friends like those who needs them?
Have you ever shot a wedding for a friend or family member? What would your advice be?
[Via Newsweek]
Alex Baker
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
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15 responses to “Wedding photographer says ‘I don’t’ as she deletes photos in front of groom”
Did this twice, never again. I just now tell them, “I am not that type of Photographer.” Period.
I have been asked to do weddings on numerous occasions. I always politely decline. It was a bit excessive that she deleted the photos. She could have left, kept the photos, and worked something out when things cool down.
If the bride and groom didn’t save a space at a table for dinner (even professional photographers should get dinner and a seat) and on top of that ask for babysitting and insist on no breaks, then it sounds like they aren’t really good friends. I had my brother and brother in law shoot my wedding; they wouldn’t accept pay and we had no expectations. They were simply guests with cameras and photo skills. The photos were simple and got sloppier as the night went on as our “photographers” had more to drink. We all had an awesome time and the photos show that. If during your wedding you are worrying about the photographer, you may have issues to work on.
I did this a couple of times. First thing I make sure they understand that I do it for my own fun. Show them what they can expect and let them know that if they change their mind it is absolutely OK.
I seen where she wished she did not
I seen where she wished she did not delete the Pics… Too Easy to recover even if card has been reformated.. Sandisk Rescue Pro recovers Photos Easy interface and works with Mac and IBM I am a serious Hobbist and use this all the time, after a shoot I recover my Photos just in case I deleted when previewing Then when backed up I “wipe” the card making it like brand new where there is no information on it. Like a new card.
I’m pretty sure that the couple will hire a professional photographer next time :D
I’m pretty sure there won’t be a next time for this couple.
Never do mates-rates. If it’s a job, it’s a job. (Oh, and she can easily recover the photos as long as she hasn’t overwritten the card.)
What a horrible, spiteful thing to do!!! The couple “assumed” that it was “their” day and weren’t being as thoughtful as they could have been, but this happens at these types of events! GET OVER YOURSELF LADY! And the poor bride. May karma visit this so-called “friend-photographer” with some seriously delicious JUSTICE!
The justice has already been served. :)
Serves them right to demand so much of her. The groomzilla will get over it.
It was extremely bold.. But I don’t blame her one bit. I was tricked into being a friend’s wedding photographer once. I didn’t want to be a bridesmaid so I said, “I’ll bring my camera and give you some really nice photo-journalist style shots.” When I got there, a thousand miles away in the mountains, I found out I was THE wedding photographer. I just had my little digital cannon and one rechargeable battery.. I had to beg her to pay for her own memory card. They did feed me at least. But they got mad at me when I had to stop shooting to charge my battery every so often. It was complete and total chaos. I didn’t know what I was doing and it showed in the pictures. I couldn’t corral all the appropriate family members and take decent group portraits. I got paid nothing for working for 10 hours and getting yelled at by these maniacs I thought were my friends. These folks didn’t pay her, feed her, and they made her babysit on top of it all. It’s insane. And that’s the problem. They are not friends if they take advantage of you so much. And they would not treat a professional photographer this way and would’ve had to pay them $500-1000.
I’d always say, don’t take crap from crappy customers. If they have the gall to tell you how to do your job, they can do it themselves.
WTF??!? The photographer–even an amateur one–is supposed to be the day-of wedding planner and organizer, too, not to mention babysitter?? I don’t think so. I’ve shot many events like this, just as a friend. Sometimes, folks offer money for my services, and I generally decline (because I’m not a professional wedding photographer, nor do I want to be), but the tiny amount they offered her (and then didn’t pay) was only enough to be a token for photographic work and certainly didn’t cover all the other things she was tasked with. So, I don’t see a single problem with what she did after the groom berated her and demanded services they never would have of a professional photographer. No regrets, except that she didn’t save the images to critique and admire, herself. Besides, what if the images didn’t turn out? The bride and groom would be in the same place, which is why they should have bitten the bullet and hired a professional, instead of laying this all on their “friend.” In the end, the pro would have been on the hook for whatever s/he promised, the friend might have captured a few more beautiful shots from different angles, and the couple would have a bounty of images to remember their big day by.