Engagement Pic Blunder - What to do?! Sketchy??

mbishop7

Okay, we had a GREAT time shooting engagements with our photog. She and her husband are great people, professional, and I am in love with my engagement pictures. We set up our contract for engagements, bridals, and 8 hours of wedding day shooting. My mother signed and paid the deposit, which was written up like this:

8 hours of wedding day coverage
High res DVD with copyright release of wedding coverage
Engagement session
Bridal session
90 day password protected online viewing and ordering
A few other things..

I did not see this when my mom was doing the contract, but she is now freaking out because it is costing us an extra $300 for a DVD of the engagement pictures on top of the $2300 we have paid for the package. As you can see, the package says the wedding day coverage has a DVD but not the engagement or bridals, therefore we have to buy them to even be able to use them in anyway.

Is this normal?!!!? I know my mom should have read more carefully, but it kind of seems a little sketchy or a way to get extra money out of us. Our photographer has said that the engagement and bridals are just a way for us to get "comfortable" in the shoots and some people don't buy any of the photos, some buy just a couple, and some buy the DVD.

lbarr088

From what it looks like, the engagement session was included (our photographer would've charged $150 for that if we decided to use her).  The photos, unless stated, are usually not included in the engagement session.  That is the main reason we did not use our photographer for them but a friend with a very nice camera ... and they turned out wonderful!

So yes, it is normal.

photogbride12

Yes this is normal. You have to negotiate rights before you sign the contract. The extra cost of the DVD for those shoots is compensating the photographer for lost print sales and $300 is quite reasonable - I hear quotes of $500-$1,000+. This is pretty much standard in the industry, your photographer isn't trying to pull money out of you. She included the shoot, but you need to pay her for additional edit/print ordering time or lack of revenue if you take the images and print elsewhere.

pzavecz

With the photographer we are using, we get files from the engagement session.  Some of the photographers I inquired with when researching, charged a separate price to get the engagement files on top of the actual cost of the session.  So it's not unusual.  This was one of the reasons we went with the photographer we did.  We really want the files from our engagement session.

hboo2011

I don't think it's sketchy. It specifically states that it includes an engagement session, not engagement session plus x amount of pictures, or engagement session plus copyrights w/ dvd, or anything.

Ours specifically stated engagement session plus a CD of our favorite 25 pictures and full copyrights.

staceyk00

Ack.. I just got smacked with that today.  I obviously didn't read clearly enough because the first photographer I was going to hire (but ended up not) for our engagement photos stated that she provides a DVD of the photos, so not having any experience hiring a photographer, I assumed that was the norm.  Today, I received an email from the photographer we actually hired sending me to Pictage.com to order the photos - starting at $7.99 per 4x6  

scrpio421

Yes this is kind've normal. We had to pay for the E-session and then also for the DVD of all our edited pics.  I think our DVD was only $95 dollars and our E-session was $280, We paid $375 all together. So it kinda sounds like you didn't really get a free session since she hikes up the cost of the DVD.