Wedding Photographer brought daughter along

[Anonymous2029]

So we had a very small intimate wedding which was full of lots of emotions due to various reasons. It was just us, our 2 young children and our parents. I asked a local photographer if they would come for an hour for a few photos, I wanted a nice one of the 4 of us, 1 of us all, 1 of us with my parents and 1 with grooms parents. Didn’t feel this was a big ask. Paid £200 for 45 mins of photographers time plus editing which I thought was reasonable.

The night before the photographer messaged and asked if she could bring her daughter aged 9. I should have said no, but I felt a bit pushed into saying yes as she said she had no childcare and I thought she might cancel if I said no!

I wasn’t very happy anyway with the wedding photos, she didn’t get a nice one of the 4 of us. She took it at a really odd angle so you couldn’t see the children’s faces. However my dad took loads and his were much better but in ALL the photos (that my dad took) there is the photographers daughter!!! She wanted to play with the girls but it meant that all the beautiful photos of them in the gardens playing with the flowers and then with us were with this 9 year old. My eldest didn’t take to her and got annoyed that she wanted to play.

The photographer also forgot to take a photo with us my parents! And got annoyed when my husband mentioned it and said she’d take it on one of our phones instead as she’d put her camera away.

AIBU to complain? Would you be annoyed at this? Obviously we can’t change things now and it’s only when looking back at the photos and now I’ve got the professional ones that I’ve realised we don’t have the 1 photo I really wanted :(

I think it depends on area for price. Near me you can get a very good wedding photographer for £1500 for a whole day event, so then £200 for an hour isn’t peanuts.

I’m sorry to hear you were so messed about. As someone else has suggested, there are Facebook groups where people’ll edit people out of photos for you.

I'd be furious OP. I understand bringing the child, if there was a childcare emergency it's either that or cancel the wedding photography..but I'd assume it would be a case of the child sitting in a corner with headphones on and strict instructions not to interact. It's totally unprofessional. I'd complain

Did you see examples of her work before hiring her?

Even for 45 minutes, that's just the shoot time. £200 is quite cheap for professional services including editing

I used to have a mobile hairdresser that once turned up with her two very young children and a wappy Dalmatian with her. I couldn’t believe it, I would have cancelled had I known, I no longer have her, not professional at all.

It was too cheap a price regardless. You have found out the hard way unfortunately that scrimping on cost means reduced quality.

You can easily edit the child out of photos using AI tools: most smartphones have these built in now.

You’re within your rights to complain about the poor quality photos and the fact she didn’t capture the people you had pre agreed. As for bringing her daughter, this is unprofessional, however given all the facts stated (someone local, 5 minutes away in the village, 45 minute shoot) she probably got the impression it was much less formal than a job she was being paid £1500 to do, hence feeling comfortable in asking. Because you agreed when asked, I don’t think it’s reasonable to later complain about the child being there

I think the issue of the photos being bad and her DD being there are separate.

It sounds like she didn’t have childcare but that has greatly impacted on her ability to do her work.
The photos are terrible.
The price she charged isn’t the point, she was paid to do a job and by the looks of it didn’t do it very well.
I would be annoyed at her daughter’s involvement in the wedding too.

Leave a review, she sounds rubbish. It seems very hard to get a decent wedding photographer. Either crap photos or they faff round for ages.
She shouldn't have asked to bring her daughter and she certainly should have kept her out of the way I'd complain too. It won't do any good but might save someone else going through what you have.

As this is an anonymous forum I can finally get it off my chest: our wedding photos are shit. Not up to the photographer’s usual standard at all. (hH’s a friend who we paid for the job.) But I think the issue was that he had a flight to catch that evening, and his mind just wasn’t on the job that day.
Perhaps this was the same thing? I can’t do my job to a high standard whilst looking after DC, the photographer should not have tried to.

as she knew it was an intimate wedding with emotion behind it all too

Does any wedding have no emotion behind it.

Get her to edit your dads photos to remove her daughter digitally from them. Id ask for your money back too

She sent the pic to test you out ….. incase you said No on the day and it would inconvenience her to have to take her DC home and miss the wedding - you should have rung the Mum and said ‘No’ - she already knew this tho but was pushing boundaries. Are you still friends?

I would say
‘I wanted a nice one of the four of us but you didn’t manage, I was wondering if you could please use your skills to photoshop daughter out of this one?

£200 barely covers the time though

The photographer quoted the price got the job, and had a very focused brief with a small number of people and shots to capture. Her charging more would not change the fact that the photos the OP shared are dreadful.

I would definitely complain. That is so unprofessional and the photographer didn't do the job they were meant to do. I'd be furious.

Had you seen their work before? How long have they been doing professional photography? Every now and again I see people starting up a photography business, offering low prices or free shoots to lure people in. They aren't always that great and you soon see they stop advertising.

For a professional, I would have expected to be paying a lot more than £200 as it sounds like that included photos as well. I have paid a local professional over £100 for back to school photos (I think we got around 14 photos and the shoot for this price). This photographer also has children and they are always at her mum's when she works or her husband takes them out.
I would again question how professional your photographer is that she takes a child along. I get the feeling she is someone just starting out, maybe been told she takes a good photo, but not actually a professional.

Dear God. These look like photos my dad would have taken. He was well known in the family for cutting heads off, cutting whole people off. Yours were taken by a professional. Awful.

What the hell? That's so bad.

I would ask her if she has uncropped versions of these photos because you don't like the fact that the tops of people's heads have been cut off. See what she says. Hope you haven't paid her yet.

I think this is a case of pay peanuts get monkeys. I booked a family photo shoot with a friend and it was £400 for an hour shoot. Because then you add all the editing time etc. The photos are amazing though!!

You can change it. Go on Facebook and search for editing groups. There are people who are really good at editing people out of photos for you.

it sounds like she’s set herself up as a photographer without much training or professional consideration. It’s piss poor and I’d be very disappointed if I were you. I’d actually write to her and express what you’ve done here - you’re upset at the quality of the photos and you think bringing her daughter along and not keeping her out of your way was unprofessional and affected the dynamic of the day. I’d be advising her that maybe this isn’t the job for her and you certainly won’t be recommending her services. And you’d like a refund even though I’ll bet you won’t get it (I expect she doesn’t make much from photography!). Then ask AI to create some better photos. Or if you’re not confident with AI, take/send them to a graphics company to do a better job on them.

I would complain about the photos but there’s not much you can say about the daughter since you agreed to her being there.

I used to be a wedding photographer. The time you spend at the wedding itself is nothing, the majority of the work is after (selecting images, editing). It was not a 45minutes job because you only saw her for 45 minutes. If she did her job properly, she would have probanly gone and research the venue beforehand, plan the photos.. That's why wedding photography is expensive, but in this case you paid very little.

Did you have a contract? If you didn't, she was not a professional photographer. Nobody in their right mind would do a wedding without a contract.

The cutting of the heads is debatable. There are plenty of nice photos with heads cut, I guess it depends where it is cut and if it makes sense, but a photo is not automatically bad just because a bit of head is missing, that's normal when you are capturing close ups or more intimate moments

Cutting people's heads off may indeed be a stylistic choice which is why it is worth the OP asking the photographer if she has any uncropped versions of those photos.

I also think it would be reasonable to say, "We aren't super happy with the pictures you took. My dad did take some nice ones but unfortunately your daughter is in them. You put me on the spot asking if you could bring her along because I was afraid that if I said no you might cancel at the last minute. But you should have made sure she stayed out of the way. Since the pictures you took are disappointing and your daughter shouldn't have been in the pictures my dad took, I was wondering if you could edit her out of some of my dad's pictures as a goodwill gesture?"

I realise this would involve an awful lot of work for a £200 job but in my opinion you shouldn't accept a wedding photography assignment if you don't think you can do it properly.