Wedding photos terrible! Will only get partial refund if I sign disclaimer and not write review or post pics?

[Jakc]

Paid $1700 for my wedding pics, they are awful! Most are blurred and out of focus, he’s missed first look, first kiss, coming into reception, All the important shots. Nearly all the photos of me and my husband are blurred. The said they would only refund $700 of it if I sign disclaimer to say I won’t leave review or discuss with anyone anything negative. They won’t refund it all as photographer turned up, took photos and delivered in a timely manner! Doesn’t matter to them they are shit and can’t be redone. I told guests not to take pics as I didn’t want the professional ones ruined by camera phones. What should I do? The company is in Mexico I’m in uk if that makes a difference.

@Bluntness100 the couple look lovely but the photos are grainy as shit! Can’t you see it?

I’m sorry OP. No idea how they thought they’d get away with this. I could literally have taken a better quality photo on my phone. (You guys look great though.)

I'm not your friend and will happily leave a review - I saw these on an Internet forum and they are poor etc... Would that sit with the disclaimer.?

Previous posters are right in that in time it won't seem so bad that your photos are not great. I am so sorry for you though.

Given that they are in Mexico and your options are limited, I would take the £700 and sign.

I’m actually glad people are agreeing they are awful as after the first few comments saying they were good I thought what???!! They are awful, I would have been so embarrassed to give out work like this. Love the idea of using my favourite one to get a painting or drawing done, never thought of that. Thanks so much for all your thoughts and advice x

Op given you’re a photographer, have you had a chance to compare the exit data on your photos and the ones on the portfolio - especially if more have been added to the portfolio since you had your photos taken? I know it’s not conclusive but if you can show that the portfolio pix were taken with a high end camera and yours weren’t, or were taken with a different camera, then that would be suspicious. Not perfect evidence I know, as photographers do upgrade their kit, but they rarely go backwards and they usually keep a decent camera as a spare. But if they took rubbish pix of you and nicer pix afterwards, it would be useful evidence to add to your claim that it was a different photographer or one who was not using the high end kit you had a reasonable expectation of them using given the portfolio.

Have you reverse image searched any of the images in the portfolio to see if they turn up elsewhere? Or indeed any of your pix to see if anyone else is claiming credit?

Have you googled to find a pic of your photographer to see if you can check it was the right person? Or if anyone has a pic of your photographer (small chance) then checked to see if it comes up as the name you’re expecting?

Also have you googled the photographer/hotel/venue/wedding company/town/beach etc along with words like problems or issues or bad photos or law suits (might take a few attempts to hit on the right combination that brings back the results you need) to see if anyone else has had any problems?

Does the photographer have any Facebook or instagram pages you can use to see if it was him, if all his pix are bad but were good, what he was doing on the date of your wedding...

If you could find evidence he was taking pix at a different wedding for example (google his name and date?) - then that would be a massive help in proving that it wasn’t him that took your photos and thus they should refund you everything plus compensate you.

Do you have legal insurance with your house insurance/bank account/union/job that would be able to give you legal advice that you wouldn’t need to pay for?

Any way you could get others (people on a wedding website already thinking of booking in Mexico?) to make enquiries to see if they will double book photographers if somebody has one booked and someone else enquires about availability to see what they say? Even just asking if anyone has xx photographer booked next year or if booking at yyy venue/using zzz company next year, what dates and photographer have they booked as you’re concerned that you didn’t get the one you booked - I bet you’d get some responses and might get lucky...

Good luck - I know what a disappointment it is to get a bad set of photos back when you’ve got high expectations having seen a great portfolio.

They look like they were taken by a disposable camera, awful.

So the photographer was booked as part of the hotel package. Does the hotel know any of this?

I'd also say to the photo company it's a full refund or you post the pics and a seriously bad review on social media. Try and use the leverage you have at the moment.

Just out of interest, Jakc, could you clarify how you came to "choose" a particular photographer - even if it wasn't the one you got? I thought the hotels who offer destination weddings roll a photog up in the package and that you effectively get whoever's been given the camera that day, rather than having a selection of portfolios to pick from?

Unless they're just pretending to offer a choice to make it look more appealing ... ?

@contentedsoul

You're all doing a great job of making the OP feel down...happy now!

WTF are you on about?

You obviously mean to post this on another thread!

No-one has made the OP 'feel like shit' FFS.

@contentedsoul

You're all doing a great job of making the OP feel down...happy now!

WTF are you on about?

You obviously meant to post this on another thread!

No-one has made the OP 'feel like shit' FFS.

@contentedsoul I think the OP would feel worse if everyone just said they were fine! She’d feel like she was going mad.

Did you miss the part where she paid £1700 for these?! She’s allowed to be cross.

Did the photographer belong to any professional organisation whose opinion you could ask for. Are they insured for situations like this.

Puzzled, in reference to asking how I was able to choose photographer, you are right usually you are allocated a photographer on the day and you can’t choose, but when booking I had already done my research and some of the photos on their page were awful (posing, lighting and editing) but some were amazing so I asked if they could tell me which photographer took certain weddings in the portfolio and requested the one I liked, they said they couldn’t guarantee it as they don’t allocate to the week before the wedding. I was so happy when they told me I’d got the one I wanted. Feel really daft now as his work looked amazing. Wibdib Thankyou for all your suggestions, haven’t done any of that but i will, I did look at what camera settings he used (it was a pro camera) but his settings were mostly wrong, he wouldn’t have had a hope of getting say the group shot sharp on the settings that was used. Also think his lens needed calibrated, maybe it was front focusing as in some of the photos the sand about a metre in front of us is what’s in focus.
X

Redred9 exactly that! Thankyou

Sadly a lot of the advice that you’ll get here is UK advice, as this is a UK forum. You’ll need to use the Mexican legal system if you want to try and recover your money here...

If you can find the equivalent of a small claims court there, and the process you need to go through, you’ll be able to weigh up whether it’s worth it. Make sure you know whether you’re required to be their in person if it does go to court, whether you can send someone on your behalf, or whether it can go ahead in your absence.

The painting idea is lovely in the meantime! And I’m sorry your photos are so poor... we’ve paid about the same as you did for two photographers in the UK, I’d have expected Mexico to be cheaper!

This person obviously cares very deeply about their reputation. Call their bluff and say, 'Full refund or I, and all my family, are posting reviews all over the internet, and going to the press in both countries'.

The photos are (sadly) done and can't be fixed, but you deserve your money back, and not to be bullied.

Oh OP. I'm gutted for you. Honestly? I have an unsteady hand, no clue about light, composition, exposure etc, and own an android mobile device. Those pictures are grainier than pictures I take in my living room - which doesn't receive any direct sunlight and has a couple of light bulbs out!

I'd not be happy letting them call the shots in their favour here. I'd be tempted to counter - you have no interest in signing their disclaimer which "I consider tantamount to blackmail, and I would like the amount of $1700 to be refunded as I have received neither the goods or service which I was led to believe I was paying for. I will consider this making good of your error and I will make no public review of my experience. Should you opt not to rectify your mistake, I will review my experience honestly on every social media platform, to all of my professional contacts in the wedding industry here in the UK, and to every wedding publication either online or in print that I can find - inclusive of the images." Or something to that effect, with a check over on the legal board first to ensure you aren't doing anything wrong.

More positively, you both look absolutely beautiful, and you are clearly very much in love! Congratulations on your marriage.

Is there a photographer that you are friendly enough with that you can do a swap? A few hours of their time to help you recreate some special shots, in exchange for a few hours of your time? A friend that you studied with? Or even just a friend you could give a crash course to in using some of your more basic equipment?

Spring is on the way, the light is improving quickly. An hour with a few props and a backdrop and another on the beach or in a meadow or woodland could yield some beautiful shots. You could even take a picnic with some champagne, maybe!

Do the chargeback. It should work but may not. I have done a partial one for an easyJet holiday as the hotel was crap, so I got the money for that back but not the flights. If it doesn’t work, take the $700, then cancel the credit card you used to pay (once the refund has hit your account) and then write the honest review. If it’s a Mexican resort they’re not going to pursue a dubious contractual dispute through the UK courts. They can’t ‘fine’ you.

Take the 700$. Get as many as your guests together dressed up somewhere nice and get some more pics taken and treat your guests to a meal. You will have a nicer story to tell your kids

I'd be tempted to take the partial refund and badmouth them on social media. Any "clause" in their "contract" is unlikely to be enforceable

@Jakc
Are you sure the photos posted on the website were taken by this photographer and not stolen from another website?
I'd try a google reverse image search and see if they show up somewhere else. If they do, you could threaten to sue him for false advertising.

And yeah, the photos are awful, there's no getting around that. You and your DH look lovely though!

I’m sorry they’re not great photos but you both look lovely and very happy. You looked beautiful. :) hope the advice from others has been helpful. I don’t have anything specific to offer but I thought you looked fab and genuinely happy, even if the photo quality is a bit rubbish.

I think your hunch about lens calibration might be accurate, I don't know how else a photo from any professional camera can be so soft, they should at least be sharp. Did they use more than one camera or at least change lenses? Maybe some of the wide angle shots came out okay? If not, might be a camera fault. Other settings like the ISO (looks very high, hence the grain) and white balance could have been fixed to some extent in post processing the raw files, but as you say there is not really anything you can do about the focus.
You have every right to be angry and disappointed about this, for a professional photographer to produce work like this is appalling.

Tell them you want the photos, take the 700. No need to wrote a negative review - just post the photos - people will see how bad they are. Write 'make your own mind up if these are worth 5,10,50,100,1000,or the 1700 we paid'

OP when you say blurry, I thought you meant can't see anything at all. These look ok to me. Can you dress up again and have a UK photographer take new ones for you. If as you say you are a photographer, you must have some contacts in the trade who can help?