Students

We're deciding to elope! I think?

btorres2113btorres2113 member
First Comment First Anniversary
edited October 2014 in Students
Hi everyone!

Both myself and FI are students and have been engaged for about 2 years now and just started planning about 7 months ago, We have booked our venue, photographer, dj and florist. Our venue has a pretty lax cancellation policy and the dj and florist have been given minimal deposits which wouldn't kill us. Please keep in mind we are paying for the entire 140 guest wedding ourselves. Our photographer on the other hand has a no refund policy and we have already made 2 of the 3 installments totaling a little over 2k. We also just sent our Save the Dates a few weeks ago and are now in the process of cancelling the whole shindig in the hopes of saving the remainder of our money and eloping in Europe over summer break. We don't know what to do with the photographer... Any suggestions?

Re: We're deciding to elope! I think?

  • Wave goodbye to your deposit and notify the photographer in writing that you no longer require his services ASAP.  What does your contract say?
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  • Her contract states: 

    "On signing of this agreement by both Parties hereto, Photographer will reserve the time agreed upon and will not make another reservation for the specific time frame. For this reason, all deposits and fees are non-refundable even if the date is changed or if the wedding becomes cancelled for any reason."

    We have decided to go ahead and cancel but realize if we do we are basically spending $2200 on engagement picture that really weren't that great to begin with. :(

    As we are both students we are really trying to find a way to recoup a portion of that money to use it for something else. She still has enough time to find someone to take our date so I don't think she would be losing money if we were to do that but don't know how to go about it. Any help is much appreciated!
  • Call her and talk to her. If she is able to re-book that date, she may give you at least a partical refund. If she won't give you a refund at all, maybe consider having family portraits done with each side of the family, just casual type family potraits like in a local park & then you can give the photos to family members as Christmas Gifts.

  • You signed the contract. That photographer booked the date for you.  It's very possible that they have had other inquiries for that date, and had to decline because it was being held for you.   Most photographers book 6-18 months in advance, so chances are, they won't be able to rebook the date (it's possible, but not probable).

    Realize that you changed your mind, and with that comes with the loss of money.  Honestly, I would stop trying to recoup the loss and just move on.   You are already going to be screwing them, because they won't get the last installment payment, and they probably won't be able to rebook the date.  
  • Also, I hate to be negative, but are you or your fi EU citizens? Most countries in Europe have residency requirements or quite a lot of paperwork/ hoops to jump through.

    I love the idea of eloping, but in Europe may be hard if you are just over for holiday. 
  • Sorry, I just realised this was a zombie thread from October!
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