A bride called my office needing a photographer on short notice. We talked about the wedding details, I quoted a price, then sent the contract to the bride. The fiancé being an attorney decided he’d flex his legal muscles and nit-pick the contract. I agreed to some wording changes, but drew the line at one particular clause. Flexing his vast legal expertise pushed for the removal of the clause or we could not strike a deal. I said OK, no deal. Oh to be a fly on the wall when he told his fiancé he blew off the photographer, 2 weeks before the wedding.
EXPECT your photographer to provide a contract outlining; services, deliverable, dates, times, location(s), extra print prices, photographer name, usage rights and fees. Don’t be afraid of the word “contract”. The contract should also protect you. My earlier attorney example doesn’t mean you can’t negotiate. Just realize how far you’re willing to go. If the photographer won’t provide a written contract, run, don’t walk, run the other direction. You have the right to know all this information and what your rights are in case there is a delivery or service problem.
If you’ve decided to have your friend with the big expensive looking camera and a big lens shoot your wedding, then give your friend a list including shots you expect, arrival time, departure time and description of the deliverable. Make it clear what you expect. If your friend doesn’t have backup equipment, then get a back up photographer! You can’t smile for the photographer is you’re worried to death about equipment failure!
One more thing, what happens if you lose the CD after delivery? What will it take to replace those images? Most professional photographers have procedures in place to duplicate and back up all image files. Should you lose your CD (fire, flood, the dog ate them or you just plain misplaced them), can you get a duplicate CD from the photographer and what will it cost?
In the next post let’s talk about Wedding Photography Copyrights.
Tom Szabo, “Phot-art-ographer”
A Thomas Image
www.athomasimage.com
