To demand a FULL refund

[BasicallyFcuked]

DH and I got married a month ago.

The photographer was a friend of a friend (but still professional) who gave us a bit of a discount. The total cost for them to photograph from 9am-6pm was £800 (a very good price by comparison to others in my area), with two copies of all the photos on discs. The venue was a long drive, about 2 hours from the photographers usual 'base' but the price included travel too.

Conversations with the photographer in the past couple of weeks have indicated that there were around 1000 photos after basic editing-out had been done. This was part of the agreement, we wanted the 'shit' photos as well as the good ones, the blurry shots, half-head shots etc (for potential amusement value), which is why there are so many.

Anyway...we had a phonecall from her yesterday. To say that somehow the discs and her camera have been mostly wiped, meaning she's lost all but about 20 random photos that she's managed to salvage. We've not seen any of them yet but they are mainly the candid shots of people talking, two of dh and I, and one group shot with everyone.

To say we're gutted is an understatement...but I've calmed down a lot since yesterday, there's no point in crying over it, nothing can be done now. Thankfully a lot of friends and family took photos so we do have some nice ones anyway.

The sticking point is...when dh spoke to her, he asked for a full refund. The photographer is refusing, and offering to refund £500. The additional £300 she thinks she should keep, as even though most of the photos are gone, we are getting 'some' professional shots (20 out of 1000...forgive me if I don't piss my pants in gratitude), and of course she was working all day, and incurred travel expenses etc.

My opinion is that I couldn't give a fcuk about her travel expenses and wasted day...we paid her for a service, which she has not delivered on, for a fairly huge event in our lives. I don't see that a mistake like this is excusable at all, and don't see why we should pay £300 for pretty much naff all.

Am I BU to expect a FULL refund, AND the 20 remaining photos on disc free of charge?

YANBU. I'd be devastated if this happened to me. Demand a full refund and bollocks to the £300.

Incidentally I find it hard to believe the photos are irretrievable. You can still recover from a memory card if accidentally deleted. I have. Unless she reformatted the card without having them backed up first

Bad review on every wedding wedding website within a hour of her

Have you called her back OP?

I am a freelance worker and if I had several site visits, completed the portfolio then lost it all I would not be paid a penny!

YANBU I can't believe the bloody cheek of it! She should be massively apologetic and trying to make it up to you, not charging you!

I do wedding photography and this is my nightmare scenario. It's never happened however as I back up as soon as I get back from the wedding and also have another copy of everything offsite.

She may be a professional but it is so easy to set up as a photographer. In the past couple of years the number of them has rocketed because I think people reckon it's a nice, pretty and easy thing to do. It's not. It's a massive responsibility.

If this was me I'd be utterly utterly mortified. Not only would I immediately have offered a full refund, I would also offer a reshoot FOR FREE and offer to make up an album from the salvaged photos and guest photos FOR FREE.

It's common decency as well as good business sense. That measly £300 won't be enough to salvage a business that's gone tits up.

YANBU. I'm a wedding photographer too and I actually wake up in cold sweats from nightmares about this kind of situation arising. If it ever did happen to me I have insurance that would help me and my client. You need to ask this photographer if they are insured, they really should have professional indemnity insurance.

There's a good chance you can recover data from cards that have been wiped as long as they've not been formatted or written over with new files. I think her story of accidentally wiped discs and no way of recovering anything is a bit iffy, sorry.

You should absolutely get a full refund and you should also be looking for compensation too. You won't get your wedding day back. There have been previous instances of weddings needing to be re staged because of situations like this - that is what PI insurance is for. If you still have problems with her then please get onto the CAB.

This happened to my cousin, they got a full refund.

A few months later, they got dressed up in their wedding outfits, got as many of the guests as possible to get together for another piss up party and got friends with decent cameras to take photos. The resulting photos are great, and they look on it as one of those things that happened.

YANBU about the refund.

If she has lost the pictures from the camera card and from her PC, and has no backups locally or offsite, then she is (a) very inefficient and (b) not worthy of the name 'professional'.

Unless she has written over the lost files (and possibly even then), she could get some or all of them recovered by an specialist recovery firm. But this would be expensive - certainly more than you paid her for the job. So it would be attractive for her to say it wasn't possible.

She has broken her contract with you and should not make any charge at all. Also (depending on the terms of that contract if there is one written) she may be liable for the cost of you setting up replacement photos in your wedding outfits.

Do not accept anything less than a full refund.

YANBU. Definite full refund

It's a bit odd though.

When I take pics off my camera I download them to my computer hardrive then copy from hard drive to disc. I can't put them straight to disc from the camera, it's impossible. Also, if she's done some basic editing, there's no way she hasn't downloaded them to her PC, you can't edit pics when they're still on the memory card, I can't even flip between portrait and landscape without downloading them first.

I'd ask some more questions - yes, she may have had a corrupt memory card (I've had it happen before) in which case the pictures would have been lost and it's believable (although my DSLR shoots in RAW and well as JPEG so I've usually managed to get something off it), but if they've been lost from discs as well, they've got to be on her hard drive somewhere

I'm betting she's copied them onto her computer, emptied her mem cards and then her computer broke.

You need to ask her what data recovery firms she has been in touvh with, and suggest some specialists yourself.

"Just" £300... unbelievable!

she obviously has not been to see someone about recovery you can always recover something we lost all ours once stupid husband and his cousin who is a bloody genius got most of them back yes some were only thumbnails but a lot are not! and i learned a valuable lesson ALWAYS BACK UP!!

Unless she hasn't lost them at all, they were just crap; and it would be professional suicide (so to speak) to admit to this and let you see the evidence?

Like other is think it highly unlikely they are not recoverable form anywhere, seems very odd. But it would cost a lot for specialist recovery.
Ask her specifically which specialist she took them to, ask them yourselves what the situation is.
If she doesn't have insurance which would pay for specialist recovery then she's not a 'professional' it is pretty much a requirement when she's setting up.

I think you have every right to demand a full refund, but if you don't pay anything, you don't have any right to the photos she does have.

She should get nothing. In fact she could be fined because she has ruined the photos. I'd go to the small claims court. Surely you would get at least a full refund.

Just to clarify was it a cash in hand mates rates thing, or a properly invoiced affair?

I think in both cases it is your photographer friend who is in the wrong, but if it was the former, she may be trying to chance her arm with you.

So dissapointing.

I would talk to her to see if she can do anything to rectify the situation. I'm assuming you still have your wedding dress, could you have a photo shoot of you and dh in wedding outfits?

What an odd photographer. She wants you to pay her £300 for ruining your wedding photos?

I would have thought she would give you the remaining 20 photos free out of goodwill along with a full refund.

She is lucky if you don't charge her for staging a rerun with a different photographer.

yy to this What an odd photographer. She wants you to pay her £300 for ruining your wedding photos?

I'd seriously question whether she really has seen a specialist about recovery, I find it hard to believe those photos were lost unless she did something very, very stupid. As others have said, you have the memory card, the PC, a disc was mentioned...

Full refund at least.

I don't think she understands the reputational risk she's running at the moment. All it takes is for you to disclose the name of her business and tell your story and which bride is ever going to book her after hearing that?

no i think a full refund is in order. she's royally cocked up. how can she lose them bar 20? makes no sense to me.

I wonder if she forgot to put a card in the camera and the ones she has were on the camera's own memory.

Gilmours..I think you have the best answer. .20 is about all a normal memory holds isn't it?

I would have thought tho that a decent camera wouldn't take photos if there was not a memory card in it?