Wedding horror stories

Well if you have the latest edition of the Scottish Wedding Directory magazine you may have read about the terrible upset Carol and Nick went through when they received their wedding photographs. They were aware on their wedding day that their photographer didn’t appear to be as good as what they had originally thought when booking him but when they returned from honeymoon and actually saw their wedding photographs…well let me quote their words directly from the article..."We had no idea things were going to be so bad. When I saw the photos I cried and my husband just sat shaking his head in disbelief".
You can read the full story in the magazine but it reminded me of something similar that occurred two years ago when another disappointed couple were so upset with their wedding photographer they took him to court and sued him. Shortly after that event I wrote a blog article about it and it subsequently has become my most read article and my most searched for on google (if you type 'wedding photographer sued' into google it comes up about two thirds down the first page if you’re interested in reading it). Now I’m going to tell you a story of my own but first let me address a couple of points that I think are important.
How do you select a wedding photographer? Price? Friendliness? Likableness? Value for money? Album? Overall package? All these things come into the equation but first and foremost it has to be the quality of their photography. It doesn’t matter how likable the person is, or how reasonable their pricing or how beautiful their elegant leather albums are…if you end up with mediocre photographs all these things become irrelevant. Interestingly both Carol and Nick and the couple who sued when first meeting with their photographer instantly liked him, got on with him great, found his prices reasonable and were happy with the package he was offering. They even sat down with him before the wedding day and discussed exactly what they wanted and he promised they would get it!
So what is the answer? Well let me tell you a story...

Have you heard the saying 'don’t believe everything you read'? Of course you have, and the reason I’m telling this story is that whilst bridal and wedding magazines, as well as supposedly authoritative websites, give excellent advice to couples planning their weddings not all of it should be taken as gospel. For example, most magazines make a big thing of 'meeting your photographer face to face' and 'making sure you get on great with him' and 'seeing if you have a rapport with your photographer', etc etc.
Now don’t get me wrong this is all very nice and personally it’s a part of the job which I love, even if couples don’t book me to photograph their wedding its great chatting with them and hearing about their plans and idea’s. I love photography and love weddings, so I am always happy to meet with anyone. However, it does not tell you what your wedding photographs will turn out like. Just because you think I am the nicest guy in the world and that we have an awesome rapport, does not necessarily mean my photographs will be awesome. Ironically, the very magazines that promote the importance of these things are the ones that run the above horror stories only a few pages later in the same issue where the couples did all that. The main way of determining how good a photographer is is from
the quality of his work. And a good photographer will take good photographs no matter what, even if he has never met you or knows anything about you. Let me illustrate...

The pressures and constraints on a magazine shoot are quite often far more intense than on a wedding day. Very often you have never met the people you will be photographing nor those you will be working with. Not only can some of them be unfriendly but many don’t even want to be photographed in the first place and work hard at being as uncooperative as possible. But there is never ever any excuse for not delivering the goods. A magazine editor is not the least bit interested in how hard things were, or how limited your time was or the attitude of anyone else. All they want is to see the goods - which have to be superb images that will make the magazine stand out from the others sharing the same shelf.

A few years ago I was commissioned by a well known magazine to go down and do a shoot at a prominent castle owned by a very famous Duke. The schedule had been arranged between the dukes PR people and the magazine Editor. I had the morning to photograph the castle grounds and rooms and then an hour photo shoot with the Duke himself on the afternoon. Now unknown to me the Duke doesn’t like being photographed and when informed of the arrangements on the day in question refused to do the photo shoot. His PR team
worked hard to get him to change his mind but he wouldn’t budge. The first inkling I got that anything might be amiss was when the Dukes PA came to see me as I was photographing inside the castle and told me the session with the Duke would have to be cut from an hour to ten minutes. I said sure that would be fine. Behind the scenes frantic negotiations then got underway with the Duke in attempt to get him to agree to do ten minutes of photographs. Eventually, and to cut a long story short, lol, the Duke agreed to allowing me to do ONE photograph and that it couldn’t be published until he had seen it first and granted approval.

So this is what’s going through my mind…I have a subject who not only doesn’t want to be photographed but is also showing outward hostility to the whole arrangement. The article for the magazine was dependant upon inclusion of a photo of the Duke himself, otherwise the article wouldn’t run. Not only does the Duke not even want to be there but if he personally doesn’t like the photo for any reason whatsoever he won’t approve it, hence no publication. And all of this was going to be staked on ONE shot! Now back then we were shooting film so there was no way of being able to sneak a quick look at the back of the camera immediately after taking the shot to double check it was good. Which meant I was in for a long wait before hearing the verdict! lol

So what did I do? Well I cheated! I took THREE shots! lol. They were all done within about ten seconds so the Duke didn’t really have chance to complain and as it turned out he liked all of them. So much so that a few months later he became a client and employed me to do some work for his personal estate.
So what’s the moral of the story? Yikes, I sound like an Aesop fable! Well this story was not an isolated or rare occurrence, I have loads of stories like this (don’t worry I’m not going to be telling them forever more, lol) I’m really just trying to illustrate that 'rapport' and how you 'feel' about a photographer is not as important as assessing the photographs themselves. Above everything else you must study the images. Do they have impact? Do the people in them look good? Do they portray all the emotions and feelings of the wedding? Have they been taken from pleasing angles and with flattering light? Has the photographers timing been spot on? Can you see the texture and shape in a white brides dress or have the details been blown out? Do the couple look natural and relaxed even in posed photographs? I could go on but I’m sure you get the idea, lol.

I reiterate again, I am not belittling the importance of meeting and how you feel about a certain photographer, but this is not the most important criteria. Neither is price. The two things that often lead to disappointment. The photographs are! All the images posted in this blog are from weddings where I have never met the couple until the wedding day itself. They booked me simply from seeing the images on my website. As a wedding photographer in Edinburgh I have many clients come up from England,
across from Ireland and over the sea from America where it has not been possible for them to meet me. As a professional photographer I have an obligation to give them high quality photography and make them look great in their photos no matter who they are or what they will look like.

The two upset and unhappy couples mentioned in the horror stories both spent considerable time meeting several different photographers at wedding fairs before deciding which one they liked enough to book. At the moment we are coming to the close of the spring wedding fair season and most of the wedding photographers in Edinburgh have been busy exhibiting, myself included. If you are attending a wedding fair and have not yet booked your photographer my advice is concentrate on the albums. A good wedding photographer will have plenty of real life wedding albums displaying photographs from the entire day. Any photographer who is proud of his work will love showing it to you. They may not be the slickest sales man or have an eloquent spiel but if their photographs speak for themselves then they won’t need to be.