Hi everyone,
I was hoping I can get some advice regarding our wedding photographer. We have previously booked a photographer and have already paid a deposit of $475. Our photographer was very responsive initially, and was helpful in answering questions. We then booked an engagement session, and I was not impressed with our photos. There were only a handful that I liked, and I noticed some mistakes in the photo (purses on the ground that she said she would edit, etc.) that were not corrected. She also sent duplicates of the same photo, and did not provide photos with our dog as promised. I had to follow-up with her a couple times on all these, and I noticed that she has been unresponsive and would fail to keep her promise to deliver the edited photos a number of times. My fiancé have also considered increasing our photography coverage as we want to make sure we get enough time for all the shots that we like especially considering we would be switching venues from ceremony to reception. When we asked to upgrade our contract, she said she can just change it from our old contract and that she would send us a copy of the updated contract. She stopped responding to emails after that.
My question is... What is the best way to handle telling her that we would like to switch photographers? Also, I tried to review our contract and it is vague as far as whether we just lose our deposit or if we would owe the full package price. Below are two sections covering the cancellation and would love to get some advice!
Reservation: For this reason, the Reservation retainer of $450.00 dollars is non-refundable, even if date is changed or wedding cancelled for any reason, including acts of God, fire, strike, and extreme weather.
Right of Withdrawal: *If the client decides to postpone or reschedule their wedding due to covid-19 restrictions/mandates/guidelines, or for any other reason, the client agrees to ask the photographer to provide available dates in the timeframe given by the client, and both parties will come to an agreement on a new date. If the client decides to cancel entirely, or both parties cannot come to an agreed upon date 60 days or more before the original date of ______, the wedding package amount will still be due.
