AIBU to think this is greedy and unreasonable of the photographer?
My sister was due to get married this summer however 7 months before the wedding her fiancé unexpectedly broke up with her, which she was devastated about. She was also left to deal with cancelling the wedding vendors. To alleviate the burden on my sister, me and my family have been helping her with it all. I wanted some advice and thoughts specifically on the photographer.
She booked them a year ago and put down a £500 deposit. When they were informed of the cancellation (straight away 7 months out) they weren’t very nice about it and basically said she’d lose the deposit (somewhat expected) but that their policy was to insist on the full payment of £1800 for any dates less than 9 months out as they said wouldn’t be able to re-book the date and they had no exceptions.
We exchanged some curt emails in which we underlined several CMA policies including that they must re-advertise the date and try and get a booking and if failing that they could re-coupe for possible losses where reasonable. They said they would do that and we didn’t hear from them.
My sister’s friends took her away for her would-be wedding date to take her mind off it. The photographer emails her on the would-be wedding day with the invoice saying they’d not been able to book and needed payment, which she was obviously extremely upset about. Personally I cannot believe the lack of tact! Considering the industry they work in surely they understand how upsetting this sort of situation can be. It makes me think they really really don’t care about the couples they are dealing with. I did call him and told him to stop messaging my sister and really he didn't seem like a nice man at all.
I worked out that he must make at least £200k+ out of this business a year based on rough dates he said he was booked up for the year. Surely they have some leniency than to insist someone forks up such a large amount for him to do nothing with so much notice, he’d already be getting £500 out of her. Seems incredibly greedy.
As a side note, I should mention I’m a small business owner myself and have a rental property for short term lets. I have built into my business model cancellations with reasonable notice because it’s just part of doing business. I’m a bit shocked about the T&Cs in the wedding industry. I think a lot of couples just agree because they’re naive and caught up in the moment and they get taken advantage of.
Any advice on fighting this also welcome, if you think we should.