WR: Photos not in on time from photographer

golden1215

Our photographer has 3 days to get us all of our wedding photo stuff that came w/ our package (all shots/negatives on a CD, 300 color corrected images in an online gallery and 300 color corrected 4x6s)

I have the sneaking suspicion they are going to be late...  This lady lost our initial contract and we had to send in another one, she doesnt respond to emails or calls quickly unless you're wanting to buy something (we also had her do portrait photos of DD in her halloween costume) and she just seems flakey in general.  To be clear, she is the owner of the company- not the one who shot our wedding, with whom I was suuuper happy.

So, if they are late- is it reasonable to ask for more?  Free larger photos?  More images color corrected?  Coffee mug w/ my face on it????

I mean, what's the point of a contract that says you have X amount of time if you dont deliver within that time frame...?

Mrs.B6302007

Does the contract say anything about compensation if they're late?

FutureMrsTR

I would probably just ask for some money back depending on how late they are.  Then you could just use that money to print your own from the CD.  If you ask for more stuff, it could just take her forever to get it to you.

golden1215

The contract doesnt say anything about money back- just that all final products will be delivered 4-6 weeks from the wedding date.

Calypso1977

3 days seems extremely fast if you want high quality results (and you got married in the height of wedding season when they are doing multiple weddings).

we got married in february (off season) and our images were online after about 3 or 4 days.  our DVD of all the images was sent to us about 2 weeks later, as they wanted to really perfect all of the airbrushing, etc. before giving us the final product.   i felt that was very fast and assumed that had we been married in teh fall (EXTREMELY popular around here, more so than summer) it would have been longer.

FutureMrsTR

Calypso - I think she meant 3 days from today, not 3 days from her wedding.

Mrs.B6302007

4-6 weeks is pretty standard and it's not like the clause says you're guaranteed to have them in your hand at the 6 week mark.  If it were me, I would give her another week and then contact her.

rknox88

If I were in this situation I would call her the day after they were supposed to be in if I haven't heard.

I would make it clear that I was under the impression they were going to be done the day before. I would then ask why they weren't done and have her give me a date of when they would be finished. 

If she were to say "Oh I just need one more week." I would then negotiate compensation if she were to take longer than the one week (or whatever time frame she says, as long as it isn't outrageous).  I have done this in the past and it has worked everytime.  If you were to negotiate that she would take 20% off your final fee should the pics to be in after the extended deadline she has a little more motivation to get her butt in gear.  Right now she doesn't have too much to lose by not sticking to the timeline she gave you.

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

Did you pay in full already? Our contract says our photographer has 3 weeks to deliver photos (she'll have them online in 3 weeks and give us a CD with high res images a week after that), but her final payment is due upon delivery. So there's that. We don't pay until we have them in our hands.

If it took her, like, 6 months, then I would totally argue against giving her the final payment.

My photographer just emailed me last week to tell me I'd have the online photos in a week. Have you talked to this woman since the wedding? Any updates at all? Have you asked? I would definitely contact her about it before asking for free stuff.