Why do “wedding photographers” do this?
I watched Watchdog on BBC1 this evening during which there was a feature about a wedding photographer who was providing a less than professional service to couples getting married, claiming to be a photographer with many years experience.
The programmer highlighted several dissatisfied couples whose weddings this photographer had photographed. In one case he had booked a wedding and assured the couple that he would be the photographer who would photograph their wedding; he sent a photographer to cover the wedding photography who the couple had never met and the photographer was late and missed the shots of the bride getting ready.
It turns out the office of fair trading are aware of demands totaling over £14,000 outstanding that had been awarded as compensation to people that had taken the photographer to court; none of the compensation had been paid.
It is such a shame when people who profess to be professional simply do not provide a professional service or even decent photographs. The wedding album was a very poorly produced product and from memory the photographer had been paid £750 by his irate couples.
It does illustrate my comment in a previous post on choosing your wedding photographer in which I suggest that people should not be making their buying decision based mainly on price. Unfortunately, some people think that they will get a good service, great photographs and not have to pay as much as an established professional photographer who is known by other people involved with wedding businesses.
Since prices of digital camera equipment have made it easy for people who are keen photographers to become wedding photographers there has been a dramatic increase in the number of complaints about wedding photography and this is one of the services that newly weds are least pleased with.
Being a wedding photographer who like the vast majority of professional wedding photographers puts a tremendous amount of effort into every wedding I photograph it is so frustrating when a minority of photographers operate in such a way.
Please do ensure you are confident in your photographers ability; you are putting your trust in your wedding photographer please make sure you have seen coverage of complete weddings.
Update: 25/5/2011 whoops got the TV show wrong it was in fact The One Show on BBC1 and not Watchdog