Wedding Rant...what would you do?

The Mother of the Bride contacted me to do a family shoot for her daughters wedding. She was having a destination wedding and wanted a few family pics for the people who couldnt' attend the wedding.

I gave her a quote and agreed on a contract.

I show up to do the shoot, and she says "I didn't like any of the photos the photographer took, can you re-do them"

So basically do a full wedding shoot (minus the ceremony) right there with no additional time. I agreed and started shooting.

I told her the extra photos would cost her, she said Ok.

The agreed 50 photos turned into 160. When I told her how much the extra photos would cost, she said she would stick with her 50! And proceeded to chip away at the online gallery until 80 remained. Every couple days she would send me more to erase.

She said she loved all the photos and wishes she could keep them all, ( I was charging 1.25 a photo...serious)

She said she was going to hire me for her sons wedding next year....I don't know if the hassle is worth it!

What would you have done? Made a new contract onsite? Agreed on a new price on site? It was a lot of work for nothing! Live and learn I guess.

It's a little hard to answer only because I can't imagine structuring the deal this way in the first place. For something like a wedding, you really want to be paid for your time and not per image. That said, if I'm already there and being paid well for my time, I have no issue if the client wants me to stay a little long or do something a little extra; I consider it a service and use it as an opportunity to burnish my reputation.

As PF said, this is a hard one to answer. But with the way it happened, I can certainly say it is ALWAYS a bad idea to shoot without setting in stone what the price will be beforehand.

Also, did you only get paid per image she buys? If that was the understanding, then you only get paid per image she buys. If she doesn't buy 90% of the shots you took, that's the way it works.

As PF already noted, this is why wedding photography needs to be paid for by time -- not by purchase later like portraits. And honestly, selling images for a dollar is just a terrible idea. Shoot for free if you're still learning or raise your prices. You're basically telling people to not respect you if you're simply charging a dollar an image.

Hope that helps! We all started somewhere so just remember to never sweat stuff like this too much

_______________

San Diego Wedding Photographer (blog)
Twitter -- Facebook
the Raddest Photo Trip Ever!!!
Come on the next one Dec 6th-19th 2010!!!!!

Thanks,
I see the error in my ways. Live and learn.
Hopefully a newbie will read this and not make the same mistake!

BrandyJackson wrote in post #10632231
The Mother of the Bride contacted me to do a family shoot for her daughters wedding. She was having a destination wedding and wanted a few family pics for the people who couldnt' attend the wedding.

I gave her a quote and agreed on a contract.

WHAT was the contract? I charge by the hour, and once I'm "on the clock", I don't care WHAT the client wants me to shoot...IF they want me to stay longer, they need to understand it will cost them.

Although I have no problems staying a little later if Aunt Sally was late because she was stuck in traffic. It helps to be flexible.

You need to post more about your contract. You need a contract.

If you do her sons wedding then the contract payment section goes like this:
- 8 hours included, $200 per extra hour, charged per half hour or part thereof.
- CD of all acceptable images included, 300-500 photos supplied.
- Albums are an a la carte price, starting from $1500.
- Price is $1200.

Edit - you need to read up on SEO. Your website doesn't even have title tags.