Wedding- Your opinion, please.

Hi,
Just would like to know what your opinion would be for this situation, regarding a clients wedding.
We have a client that has (like all the others) postponed their wedding due to Covid.
Today I received an email saying that they have to postpone again, not due to Covid, but the bride losing a front tooth.

What I would like your opinion on, should I charge again for the new date (as I'm losing yet potential another day)?
At what rate / % would you charge?

Your thoughts?

Thanks,
S

Unfortunately if it's not in the contact currently, you should not charge for it. But... You should think about putting some form of clause in your contact for the future.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks Shaun,
Yes, have now amended our contract for such situations.
Unfortunately we have shoot ourselves in the foot and will have to wear the cost of this one.

Look at it this way, if you ordered a parcel online that was due to be delivered on Friday but the package got delayed and wasn't due til Saturday would you expect to have to pay additional charges for the delivery? No you wouldn't. What if it was then further delayed because you were out on Saturday so they came back again on Monday to deliver, would you expect to pay extra charges then?

You're still delivering the same service but on a different day so why should the price change?

I don't shoot weddings anymore, but when I did, I had only two paid cancellations. In the first case, the bride paid for everything six months in advance, something that I discourage. It was a September wedding. Two weeks before the wedding, she canceled. I didn't refund the money because I had turned down other engagements because I had booked her wedding during prime time and had turned down other engagements.

The second wedding was supposedly a postponement. She had paid a deposit three months ahead. It was a Valentine's Day wedding. That's a special day for some photographers, but it was off-season for me. I told the bride that I'd keep the deposit unless I could book another wedding near or on that date.

TA DA! I got a wedding contract for another couple sometime between Christmas and New Year's. (That was good enough for me. II don't remember the exact date because it was so long ago). In the latter case, I refunded the deposit.

I covered refunds in my contract, and both brides agreed to the clause, so I was within my right to keep the fee. Both told me the circumstances of the cancellations. Both stories were pretty sad and wholly believable. (Nothing tragic, just grooms who got cold feet). In the case of the first bride, I had a very bad feeling about the guy, and I actually touched base with her a couple of times just to make sure that the date was still on. She seemed perplexed that I called her to confirm the date a couple of times, but when she called me in tears to tell me that the wedding was off, she commented, "You KNEW, didn't you?" What do you say to that?

If you shoot a lot of weddings and postponements create business problems for you, address postponements in your contract. In the case of the OP, if he collected a deposit, keep the deposit with the caveat that you will try to accommodate their plans within a reasonable amount of time after the first cancellation. In the case of Covid, boy, that's a hard call. Nobody can predict that or work around it except to postpone. Follow your conscience.

In the future, be sure to work with a formal, signed agreement, and make it as bullet-proof as possible.

But DO try to show understanding and compassion.

You say you're "potentially" losing another day. How likely were you to actually have another booking...I think I'd base my decision on that.

Regardless, I could make the arguement that you would gain more than you lose if you don't charge them again. It's been a rough 2 years for everyone, and imagine how this girl must feel planning, re-planning because of Covid, and now re-planning because she lost her front tooth.

The right thing to do as a business is to recoupe a small percentage of income you would have gained from another client, if you think you would have had another client. The right thing to do as a person is to tell them there is no additional charge and you're looking forward to shooting their big day. Just my $0.02

Not charging the client a second time when the wedding is on again is a friendly, compassionate solution. In the case of weddings that are booked well in advance of the date, the photographer has, in many cases, already invested a fair amount of time with the client aside from the initial contact during which the contract is reviewed. Sometimes it is a good idea to cut one's losses and move on, especially if the case is that one of the parties has bugged out permanently. It is a difficult decision for the wedding photographer to make.

If the photographer charges $3,500.00* per wedding and collects 50% eight months in advance, what is the likelihood that he'll bank that deposit until the completion of the contract? It's not likely if the WP has regular business expenses. ( I agree the the WP shouldn't spend the deposit before the wedding for many reasons, but how many WPs actually refrain from doing so?).

*(NB: I picked $3,500.00 out of the air because I don't know what WPs charge these days. Twenty years ago, that was a mid-range price tag in my market area).

Another thing to consider is the reliability of the client. It is difficult to know the circumstances behind the cancellation. Did something happen in the dynamic of the relationship? Is one party expecting a new suitor? Is the couple still together but experiencing some other distress? That isn't the photographer's business, but knowing the circumstances will help the photographer to decide whether to accommodate the couple's change of plans.

I've had prospective clients (i.e., they didn't sign a contract) string me along for months giving me projected wedding dates only to tell me that the wedding is off. Early in my foray into the business of wedding photography, I met with a couple that I liked. They took my contract and promised to sign it and remit the deposit when they had everything lined up. I liked the couple. They were genuinely nice people that had been together for years. I should have called it quits after the bride-to-be called the SECOND time to inform me that their plans had to be postponed because "Sonny is in jail again." Every couple of months we'd touch base. I didn't know the circumstances of the other delays, but I was strung along for quite a while. Then I didn't hear from them. I called them. Their phone was disconnected. (Remember land line telephones?). Had I booked them, their personal strife would have wreaked havoc on my own schedule.

My point is that the WP's time expenditure doesn't start on the day of the wedding. There may be several phone calls to discuss the wedding and its pertinent details. The down payment should be intended to cover that expenditure as well as strengthen the commitment of the soon-to-be-betrothed.