Bride Cancels Wedding, Wants Depsoit Back

Oy. Soooo...I have an upset bride. This is a first for me in 6 years, and I really need help in how to approach this.
I can try to be as brief + concise as possible.

· Bride books her wedding with me.
· Changes her mind on location 3 times.
· Then changes the date 3 times.
· During all of this I am accommodating and patient with her.
· Bride finally solidifies the wedding arrangements, we have an hour consultation to go over her millions of questions. We go through several variations of the contract.
· We set date for engagement shoot.
· May 15th we do engagement photos.
· Bride requests that photos be completed on June 1st. I tell her that won’t be possible, it’s too soon (and I am out of town the last week of may).
· Bride still emails me the week of June 1st asking if they will be done June 1st. I remind her that it would not be possible
· Bride asks if I can complete engagement photos by June 8th. I tell her this is fine. During the week of June 8th, I get 2 emails + 2 text messages asking if I will have the photos done on the 8th.
· (At this point, I am highly irritated at her constant pushing, prodding, and stress.)
· June 8th, I deliver the set of edited images. I don’t hear from her.
· Yesterday I receive a phone call from the Bride basically telling me that she is not happy with our “Chemistry” and would like either a full refund of their deposit, or perhaps a partial refund, or they would like me to shoot their “BRIDAL SHOWER”…I told her I needed to figure things out and I would email her. She followed up with this email:

FINAL DELIVERY: “KRISTEN TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY” will deliver the prints and any additional material once printing is completed. “KRISTEN TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY” will also deliver a CD with the high resolution negatives of all selected printed images. High resolution prints of these images can be ordered from “KRISTEN TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY” at the specified tariffs. High Resolution negatives of any additional images ordered will also be provided.

RIGHT OF WITHDRAWAL: “KRISTEN TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY'S discovery of new information, changes to agreed circumstances, or other factors which tends to circumvent its policies may result in its withdrawal. Non-cooperation; changes in locations, facilities or available times; missed appointments and late payments are examples of contributing factors. Should “KRISTEN TYLER PHOTOGRAPHY” initiate the withdrawal, all fees will be returned, excluding deposit as well as fair market value for all services/products already provided. In case of withdrawal, $100.00 an hour is charged for all photography services already provided and $50.00 an hour is charged for all other services, consultations and all driving time, rounded up to the nearest half-hour

+

Bottom line, I am torn with what to do here. She is clearly dropping slight threats to me at this point. I am extremely frustrated at the work, the time, the effort, the energy that I have put in here, only to have her be extremely high maintenance and threatening above all. She is pulling out clauses of the wedding contract that apply to the wedding images, not the engagement photos. I dropped everything, including putting other clients photos on hold to rush and get her engagement photos to her, even though her wedding isn't until November. Not to mention, both of them were EXTREMELY difficult to shoot, and the location we were shooting at...we were kicked out, and it started raining. I did the best with what I had to work with. That day, I even offered to just shoot another day, at a different location and they just insisted we do what we could since they were already there.

I feel that I have bent over backwards to accommodate her needs, I've spent literal HOURS upon HOURS communicating with her, answering her text messages, her emails etc., and she throws this "customer satisfaction" stuff at me and threatens to write a bad review based on "Chemistry". I'm trying to keep my cool + stay professional, but my blood pressure is rising.

I really need some help/ advice on how to approach this.

In view of your lack of comfort with the client, you might want to consider exercising your "right of withdrawal."

tomj wrote in post #16027306
In view of your lack of comfort with the client, you might want to consider exercising your "right of withdrawal."

Agreed and perhaps a restraining order.

From what I've gathered, she's seems to actually be very professional about it. She understands that you've done work and only requests a partial refund of the deposit. Now of course, I don't know how much money has been paid or how much of a deposit you require, etc etc but if she's been a nightmare and there obviously no "chemistry" between you two, I'd bite the bullet, give her a partial deposit and walk away. I don't find her email to be threatening, rude, or anything of that nature. Most emails that come from unhappy clients are much nastier.

Well this line irritated me.

"We don’t want to leave negative reviews or have you think negatively of us."

It's true. She's just blunt about it.

After numerous phone calls, emails, and meetings I'm not sure why or how "lack of chemistry" becomes an issue all of a sudden, enough so that she is going to threaten writing bad reviews.

It's really easy to start to get mad and defensive when someone's not happy with your work. It happens to me too, and probably to almost everyone to some extent. So you're not alone in that. But learn from my experience - don't let those feelings creep into any conversations you have with the client. Let them be sarcastic, threatening, or whatever - not you. You're the cool, calm professional.

So with that said... It doesn't seem to me that the right of withdrawal applies only to the wedding. If a shoot is part of your contract, then it's part of the whole contract. But the clause you pasted only appears to apply to your withdrawal, not the client's. Is there a section that delineates what recourse the client has if they're not happy?

Yes, she's got a veiled threat in there, but it also seems as though she wants to work things out. The baffling thing to me is that she's unhappy, so she wants a discount for your future services. That doesn't seem right to me. Am I misunderstanding what's going on?

And finally, I think she has a point about the number of shots for the engagement, and she clearly said that she wanted to you to be able to fix her issue. You could read it that she just wants money, but if you could fix it by reprocessing, retouching, or providing more images, then that would be a win-win. It doesn't sound like there was any number discussed, so when she heard you snapping away, she assumed there would be more. Why aren't there? And why weren't the number of images discussed, particularly if there were to be less than a dozen? I think we need to know the details of that part.

That I can't chime in cause I'm obviously not you and I don't know how the interaction between you and the clients went. But, I can totally see how a client can feel like they lost the "chemistry" after an engagement shoot. If you don't feel it, you don't feel it. I'm sure you put a lot of time into the clients and don't want to lose them, but if they've expressed such feelings towards you, do you even WANT to continue to be their photographer?

int0xicatedxluv wrote in post #16027343
After numerous phone calls, emails, and meetings I'm not sure why or how "lack of chemistry" becomes an issue all of a sudden, enough so that she is going to threaten writing bad reviews.

They said they didnt like your images, that you didnt capture them as they thought you had captured others. Walk away, and be happy. Do you really think you can turn this around and have a happy outcome with an antagonistic client leading up to the big day?

CraigPatterson wrote in post #16027353
It's really easy to start to get mad and defensive when someone's not happy with your work. It happens to me too, and probably to almost everyone to some extent. So you're not alone in that. But learn from my experience - don't let those feelings creep into any conversations you have with the client. Let them be sarcastic, threatening, or whatever - not you. You're the cool, calm professional.

So with that said... It doesn't seem to me that the right of withdrawal applies only to the wedding. If a shoot is part of your contract, then it's part of the whole contract. But the clause you pasted only appears to apply to your withdrawal, not the client's. Is there a section that delineates what recourse the client has if they're not happy?

Yes, she's got a veiled threat in there, but it also seems as though she wants to work things out. The baffling thing to me is that she's unhappy, so she wants a discount for your future services. That doesn't seem right to me. Am I misunderstanding what's going on?

And finally, I think she has a point about the number of shots for the engagement, and she clearly said that she wanted to you to be able to fix her issue. You could read it that she just wants money, but if you could fix it by reprocessing, retouching, or providing more images, then that would be a win-win. It doesn't sound like there was any number discussed, so when she heard you snapping away, she assumed there would be more. Why aren't there? And why weren't the number of images discussed, particularly if there were to be less than a dozen? I think we need to know the details of that part.

Thank you for the well thought out reply

1. You are very right. When someone is upset with your work that's a rough one. I've never dealt with this in 6 years. I am definitely trying to keep my cool (thus running it past this forum before moving forward).

2. There is not a clause or section that delineates what recourse the client has if they're not happy. the bride is actually the one who pasted that clause in the email (it fell out of the quote brackets)

3. You are correct that she is unhappy with my services, but asking me to shoot her bridal shower still. This also baffles the hell out of me. Why would I even want to shoot anything for them after all of this?

4. Number of shots, there were actually 13 final shots sent to them (don't know where she got 9 from). We chose to shoot at an amusement park, and the day we arrived, before even snapping ONE image, security asked us to leave. At that time, I asked them if they would like to reschedule at another location. they chose not to, and we ran around the park renegade style taking photos. Then, it started to pour rain. Thus explaining why there are not very many shots.

int0xicatedxluv wrote in post #16027375
Thank you for the well thought out reply

1. You are very right. When someone is upset with your work that's a rough one. I've never dealt with this in 6 years. I am definitely trying to keep my cool (thus running it past this forum before moving forward).

2. There is not a clause or section that delineates what recourse the client has if they're not happy. the bride is actually the one who pasted that clause in the email (it fell out of the quote brackets)

3. You are correct that she is unhappy with my services, but asking me to shoot her bridal shower still. This also baffles the hell out of me. Why would I even want to shoot anything for them after all of this?

4. Number of shots, there were actually 13 final shots sent to them (don't know where she got 9 from). We chose to shoot at an amusement park, and the day we arrived, before even snapping ONE image, security asked us to leave. At that time, I asked them if they would like to reschedule at another location. they chose not to, and we ran around the park renegade style taking photos. Then, it started to pour rain. Thus explaining why there are not very many shots.

You are still justifying. Accept that you cant win this one. BTW if you walk, dont shoot another shot.

PS. I still am passing them a link of ALL of their images, I just have not been able to because I have been drop boxing wedding images to a previous client still. They rushed me to finish their engagement photos, so I am backed up on previous clients now. I got the edited images to them right away hoping to appease them, and I have been planning to package up and send over a link to ALL images, today or tomorrow.

int0xicatedxluv wrote in post #16027375
4. Number of shots, there were actually 13 final shots sent to them (don't know where she got 9 from). We chose to shoot at an amusement park, and the day we arrived, before even snapping ONE image, security asked us to leave. At that time, I asked them if they would like to reschedule at another location. they chose not to, and we ran around the park renegade style taking photos. Then, it started to pour rain. Thus explaining why there are not very many shots.

As the professional, you're supposed to run this by the amusement park to get their permission. I assume you checked the weather also and made them aware that there would be a chance of rain.

gonzogolf wrote in post #16027394
You are still justifying. Accept that you cant win this one. BTW if you walk, dont shoot another shot.

I can't win this one why, because the customer is always right?

"If" I walk? I don't think I have a choice lol