Ok I'm sorry if this is long and complicated, but I'm just ready to rip my hair out I'm so frustrated!!
Originally, I wanted a friend of my family to be the photographer at my wedding. She takes beautiful pictures and all of the money she makes right now is going toward a 2-year mission trip to India that she is trying to go on. But she told me that she would probably be in India already at the time of my wedding, so I kept shopping around for photographers.
I eventually started talking with Evan Godwin Photography because he comes so highly recommended by everyone on here. It seemed good, he was within my budget and one of his associate photographers was available on my date. So he gave me my personalized login info on his site and told me to pay the deposit and once that had been done and my contract had been signed, then the associate would talk to me about specific details. So I paid the deposit about three weeks ago, but on my site under "billing and legal" (Where the website said I would view my contract) it said that an electronic version of my contract was not available. So I figured that I would have to sign it in person and the associate or Evan would contact me about it.
Well the holidays came and went and suddenly my friend got in contact with me and told me that she would, in fact, be in town for my wedding if I still wanted her to shoot it. I really wanted to be able to support her trip, so I told her I was willing to forfeit my deposit with Evan and switch to her. I emailed Evan to let him know and he informs me that on top of losing my deposit (which I assumed I would be doing) I also owe him 25% of the remaining balance. I was horrified!! I looked back through all the emails I exchanged with him looking for some hint of this and couldn't find one anywhere. I went back to my personalized site and finally, under an obscure tab named "files", I found a copy of a contract I had never seen or been told about where it states that it is his policy that if a booking is cancelled any time before three months out from the event, 25% is due (any closer to the event and you owe half).
I am just SO frustrated because I definitely never signed that contract!! I never even saw it!! So, my question is....can he do that? I know everyone swears by him but this just seems so underhanded and shady. I am on such a tight budget for this wedding and am trying desperately to scrape by with what little we have. What do yall think??