Wedding Photographer Cancellation - unreasonable?

Would her wedding insurance pay it.?

£1800 isn’t his wage, it isn’t his profit. And weddings are seasonal. You don’t get full bookings all year round

I’m so so sorry your sister is dealing with this. It’s really distressing for her but it WILL pass 💐

I have quite a bit of experience with this type of thing from “wedding world”.

For 12 years I was at the business end and went to court about 8 times to recoup losses in circumstances like this.
Weddings are so emotionally charged and while it’s all “fluffy bunnies” for the loved up couples, it’s a great business to be in
.….. until it’s not.
It’s great mixing with lovely couples and their friends and family but at the end of the day, for vendors, paying the mortgage and the bills is why they do the job.

Profits from each wedding are used in business projections so each cancellation is a blow in a different way to the couple but still tough (we had 6 one year - it hit hard) …. No excuse for his attitude and actions but perhaps an explanation.

We had a 9 month - pay 60% / 6 month pay 100% contract.
The first time we went to court, we were ill prepared and didn’t know what to expect.
The judge wiped his arse with our contract.
That said, he gave us lots of pointers to use as part of his judgment which helped us to tighten up the contract (it went from one side of A4 to 4 🥴) and we were also able to use the calculations he made as a formula moving forward.
[One important point was to make sure each person in the couple was named on the contract thus joint and severally liable- no help to you but maybe to others in business].
Each time in court after that we used the formula and won each time.
What we did learn is that we could only claim for loss of profit, not for supplies we hadn’t bought to do the job (I worked for the venue so it was quite complicated- staff didn’t have to be paid, catering didn’t have to be bought in but venue fee, commissions and bar profit etc weren’t made.

In the case of a photographer it could be seen both ways - he has lost all his profit (low outlay product), he’s also lost any profits he may have made on extras like prints, albums or upgrades such as video reels, drone shots etc; but he hasn’t had to pay out for fuel and he won’t have to spend time editing after the day (which a lot of photogs will say is the bigger part of the job)
With regard to “reselling the date” I always considered this a moot point because if the date hadn’t cancelled, the other potential couple would have just chosen another date so it was still a wedding lost.

I suppose in this instance this analogy would only work for couples who are booking their wedding around the photographer’s availability which does happen if the photographer is as good as he says he is 😉

You could either tell him to keep the deposit and make him an ex gratia offer of say 15% of the difference as your final offer.
If he’s as busy as he says he is I don’t think he will be bothered to push for anymore.
Or, you can dispute the full amount continue with the stress and let him do his worst but he won’t get what he’s asking for and it’ll cost him to do it (think it’s about £100?)
Don’t know if this is helped but on a positive note he won’t get the full amount whatever you decide to do
Good luck x

If you cancelled within 6 weeks, then I could understand him wanting to keep the deposit, but 7 months is taking the piss.

Definitely don’t pay any more money and if it was me, I’d be requesting a return of the deposit too.

I run a small service based business and my understanding is that any cancellation fees must be fair and proportionate and that having a signed a contract doesn’t mean that the contract is legally enforceable unless the cancellation policy meets these criteria. I wouldn’t pay under these circumstances and if it got as far as court, I don’t believe a judge would rule in his favour. Don’t be intimidated by him or led to believe that the signed contract means she must pay.

Legally they need to mitigate their losses and readvertise which they did.

But to play devil's advocate here... if they hadn't been able to fill the date and were expecting the full amount then they should have let you know in advance that they hadn't re-booked the date (not 4pm on the day) so that you could have done a family photo shoot.

If it goes to court it's based on a balance of probabilities. I'd be looking at how hard they tried to rebook the date and also make it clear that had you known that despite regular (??) advertising the date hadn't been rebooked, you would have arranged a family photo shoot which they didn't go down you the opportunity to do so.

I'd go as far as suggesting the £500 is unreasonable. Especially if they didn't advertise the date on a weekly basis!

Ps - Facebook stalk them and check they weren't doing something else that day!

£500 isn’t a bad afternoon’s work when he actually hasn’t had any costs incurred and not even gone to work 🤷‍♀️

If the photographer was to go for claiming the whole £1800, they would throw his case out straight away as that does not represent his losses. He cannot claim for the things he hasn't had to pay for (such as the album, printing, travel, venue/hotel costs). If say the actual profit loss is £900, sister has already covered a significant portion of the actual "losses". The photographer trying to argue that it wasn't the full 9 months notice of cancellation and "only" 7 months instead will not be received sympathetically by the court. He'll have to justify why 9 months notice is adequate but 7 months isn't. These supposed contracts are often so loaded in favour of the supplier that they are often unfair (and therefore unenforceable). I'd call his bluff. Read that unfair contract terms guidance document I linked to earlier - there's loads of stuff in there to fight with. Clauses 5.1, 5.3, 5.4, 5.6 and 6.1.1 in particular.
Definitely call him out on social media, just make sure you stick to the facts (so he can't claim libel). Others need to know he's not as 'reputable' as he is currently considered.

Yanbu.

7 months is more than enough time to plan and book a wedding. I did the whole thing in 6 weeks, my sister in 5 months.

He's a lying bully. Blast him on social media, show screenshots of texts and emails so people can see exactly what they're dealing with.

I was a wedding photographer and it is standard to request full payment for a cancelled date. But, as a lot of photographers discovered during the covid lockdown, it’s not considered fair to do so. The photographer would need to provide costs for losing the business, such as marketing/wedding fayre/social media advertising as well as the approximate time in hours spent on gaining and booking your sister as a client. He may be able to prove the costs of £500 but I think if the photographer took your sister to court for the full amount he may lose the case. He may well not have been able to rebook the date and I can guarantee he doesn’t earn £200k 😄. From an £1800 wedding, 20% goes straight to HMRC and a % for national insurance. Some will be paid into a pension; sick pay/holiday pay fund; all the business equipment such as a car; cameras; computer; software etc, it’s actually not a high paying career. Good luck to your sister, hopefully things are looking up for her.

I've challenged an unfair contract term in court and won. (Holiday let)
I personally think that his terms would be deemed unfair. He's got a £500 deposit and if he was going to insist on the full amount, he should have let the bride/groom know ahead that he hadn't got a replacement booking and given them the option of using his time for a family shoot or similar.
FWIW I organised my wedding in under 7 months and another friend with a similar time frame. If he's that much in demand, surprised he didn't get another booking. Cynically I think he didn't bother, thinking he could make some easy money!
Call his bluff!

@brightyellowflower can you read? I outlined the additional costs involved in being a photographer. He may charge £1800 but the majority of that wont be going into his pocket! If its that easy, you try it.

A PP has nailed it. You signed a contract but it could poss be argued that its unfair so lose the deposit and see if they take you to court for the rest. Or ask a solicitor to see if they could get you on a CCJ if you dont pay.

You don’t accept it because you don’t understand how this business works. Yes i know that you, and plenty of people book weddings less than 1 year ahead. Most of those want things on a smaller scale and cheaper. People booking bigger more expensive venues need to book earlier. You just don’t understand how the industry works because you aren’t in it. You’ve only experienced it as a client. I’m sure there’s plenty about your line of work that would surprise me or that i wouldn’t believe until i experienced it from the supplier side. That’s just us humans being human. I get it that you don’t believe it. But I’m in the same industry and i do understand it🤷🏻

He stated the terms he was willing to accept them as a client. They signed and agreed to accept it. Now that it’s gone wrong and she’s cancelled all of a sudden she doesn’t want to be held by her agreement. Nobody expected her to need to cancel. It’s a real shame. but she and her ex fiancé should do the moral thing and pay up

Can your sister ask photographer to charge the ex-fiancee as he cancelled 7 months before rather than 9 months?

If the photographer insists on the full payment, seeking legal advice might be the next step. A solicitor could help determine whether the contract terms are enforceable under consumer protection laws and potentially mediate a more reasonable outcome.

There's some good guidance here regarding unfair contract terms:
Unfair contract terms guidance (publishing.service.gov.uk)

There's even a section called "Excessive notice periods for consumer cancellation"

In a nutshell though:
A standard term is unfair 'if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer'– Regulation 5(1). Unfair terms are not enforceable against the consumer.

Unless the T&C were checked by a lawyer then they are basically unenforceable. He hasn’t laid out expenses as he didn’t travel or stay overnight anywhere or incur costs as part of it.

I often see posts saying photographers has cancelled their event quite close to wedding date.

your sister needs to check if she has legal cover on her home or car insurance as you can ask them anything. Also wherever your sister works, see if they have an employee assistance scheme as there is often a limited amount of free legal advice. Many solicitors also offer free 30 mins so explain the problem quickly 😂 in 5 mins so they have 25 to advise you.

the photographer should have been chasing payment way before the wedding. I had to pay in full by the day.

let him take you to small claims court as he would have to prove he did everything as a couple of Facebook posts won’t be enough.

I'm no legal expert but as a business owner, I would be very confident going up against him in a small claims court. He has received £500 for doing absolutely nothing. £500 to stay in bed and do absolutely no work, just think about that. The remainder of the money would be covering his post-processing time (which can be considerable), the materials (album, paper, ink etc) which he hasn't had to pay out for. The purpose of a deposit is to cover losses due to outlay for the job. If he hasn't set his deposit fee high enough to cover his time, that's on him and not your sister, OP. The cancellations that came about because of COVID highlighted some misunderstandings as to what a deposit actually is (and why many businesses had to return them). That's why as some pp have said, it's often better to call it a booking fee instead of a deposit to have any chance of the vendor hanging on to it. Personally, I'd advise that photographer that if he tries to go with claiming the full fee, you'll definitely fight it and seek to reclaim the £500 deposit as well as costs. If he's got an ounce of sense, he'll back off. If his services were as good as he probably thinks they are, he should have had no problem replacing that booking with 7 months notice. Depending on how his contract is written, an unfair term (which payment in full would be with that much notice) may not only invalidate that part of the contract, it may invalidate the whole contract.

It is an unfair contract. H9wever, if she signed and didn't read the small print she may be liable to pay.

Even just ONE wedding a month is £1800. Hardly struggling!

Ignore ignore ignore. He's been paid. £500 for a day's work he hasn't even done. £500 would be classed as 'being paid' by any judge using his common sense. Most of the cost of photography is for the editing afterwards. He doesn't have to do any of that. Send him one final email saying he has been paid for work not even undertaken at a rate of £40 an hour and he won't be receiving a penny more.

So sorry this has happened to your sister, YANBU. Keeping the deposit is very fair and to be expected. Expecting the remainder is unreasonable.

Unfortunately, you’ve had some bad advice from people who seem to think wedding insurance covers everything and people who don’t understand the law. I hope the good advice has been helpful. Have you tried money saving expert? Martin Lewis gives clear and correct advice. Best of luck!