FRIENDORS..Don't do it!!!

Thanks to the ladies on here, I just let a friendor photographer know that I hired someone else. I hired someone with more experience and a solid contract, and now I'm so much less worried. She's costing a little more, but it will be well worth it.

Don't let guilt trick you into a potential disaster!

A friend of mine used a cousin as her wedding photographer.

Her pictures were unfortunately so grainy, that my friend made her husband get dressed up in his wedding attire, and she put on her dress, and we went to their venue and recreated their wedding formals!

So here's one of my biggest things about friendors... you shouldn't be hiring people for your wedding in the hopes that everything goes perfectly because lots of people could handle a wedding that runs flawlessly You need to hire people who will be prepared when everything goes wrong!

I did not expect for a hurricane to happen on my wedding day, but thankfully I had amazing professional vendors with tons of experience who handled everything without flinching. Our photographer and videographer quietly coordinated with each other and my mom to find somewhere with power to take getting ready pictures, re-worked our photography timeline on the fly and communicated it to all the other vendors and our family members, and they scouted out indoor photo locations. Power cuts out in the middle of the ceremony? Not a problem! Our officiant is a family friend but also an ordained minister with a huge congregation - he's prepared with a flashlight in his pocket which he didn't even need because he just started projecting his voice and finished the service from memory. Our venue was panicked that power wouldn't hold to cook the meals, and they spent all day looking for back-up generators and had an emergency plan B in mind that still involved my guests being fed - even if it was pizza

The band cancelled 5 hours before the reception - not a problem. My planner is on the phone with all of her contacts, also calling in a favor with her husband and telling him he needs to DJ that night, and also fielding calls from our entertainment agency who it turns out was able to send a local DJ for that night as a replacement. Like this was seriously unbelievable - our band cancelled 5 hours before the reception started and NC was in a declared state of emergency and my vendors find me THREE last minute replacements vendors. That's amazing.

I only know 1 friend who has used a friendor and it was for their engagement pictures. It was a close friend of theirs who is an amazing photographer, but doesn't normally do weddings. They got back beautiful pictures....of mostly landscape. Since the photographer isn't used to doing engagement shoots they missed all the things that a wedding photographer would never forget - are their faces in focus? Is the ring facing the right way? Does the bride have hair in her face? Is this a flattering picture?

Like most friendor scenarios - they were uncomfortable telling their friend that they were not happy with the pictures and instead hired a professional to re-do their engagement pictures. And then they stressed over the 'awkwardness' of sending their friend a save the date with an engagement picture they clearly didn't take!

Please don't confuse having shotty and shitty friends with all "friendors" being unreliable. I am a professional. The next two weddings I'm doing are of friends. They love the venue and wanted me as their DOC because we are friends, and I will not sugarcoat anytging. We sign a contract. I do my job. If I don't, they can fire me, take me to court, and/or say I am a bad employee. If someone does it to a friend, they probably will and have done it to a stranger. I'm sorry for all of your poor experiences, but you all just had some bad friends.

My best friend fell victim to the friendor nightmare. I posted this story recently, but I will recap. His wife had a lifelong friend who happens to be a professional wedding photographer. She offered to shoot their wedding for free as her gift to them, but they insisted on paying her full rate and signing a contract just like any other clients in recognition of her status as a professional who makes a living doing this.

Well, of course things went off the rails. She took a completely unreasonable amount of time to edit and deliver the photos. They knew without a doubt that she was prioritizing other clients since she knew her friends would be more understanding of a delay than random strangers. When they did finally get them back, there way fewer photos than they had been expecting since the photographer was also focused on enjoying the party instead of just working it. Plus the photos they did get far disproportionately featured members of the friend group the photographer shared with the bride since she spent most of the night hanging out with those folks. There were hardly any photos of the groom's side at all.

As you might imagine, this whole thing put a serious damper on the friendship. They went from besties of 15+ years to barely talking. And this is a situation where the bride and groom were very intentionally trying to do everything "right"--the friendor was an actual professional photographer, and they treated her like a professional by paying her and getting a contract. And in the end it still went tits-up.

In all my years of catering and officiating, I have literally done one wedding, for one of my colleagues. Because we have a small group of officiants, literally anyone she chose would have been a "friendor", but it's a little different because we are both pros who do the same thing and have the same standards. I wouldn't have been a guest at this wedding otherwise, so the temptation to be anything but the officiant wasn't an issue (plus my officiating part was done before I was a guest....) We are both psycho OCD, so no detail got pushed to the side or ignored.

But in a normal situation , this is not a great idea.

@Tamara- I think if it were my mother I would hire a professional. It would be really cool and sentimental, but I personally wouldn't want my Mom stressed and freaking out on my wedding day.

There was one friendor I kinda got pushed into, he's a photographer and my parents accepted his offer to do the photography on the wedding day without consulting me first. Since they're paying a pretty significant piece of the wedding, and at the time I didn't have the ability to not accept their help, I reluctantly accepted it despite my numerous disputes (he was reluctant to sign a contract, he had no listed wedding photography experience on his website, didn't like his work, etc). Well, a little while ago he called my Dad and said he got booked for a paying job the day before and the day of my wedding, I felt such a huge relief. My financial situation changed and I was able to hire a pro, so I jumped on it immediately. My Dad wanted me to postpone the wedding so his friend could still do the photography and actually got upset with me when I said no lol, craziness.

That being said, my Godmother, who is a pro officiant and has experience doing weddings, is marrying us. I'm hiring someone I knew from undergrad, not particularly close to we just had classes together and loosely keep in touch, who is a pro, licensed makeup artist (with wedding makeup experience) with a contract and I'm paying her the normal rate. I'd never do a friend or without a contract (though the MUA is more like a professional I happen to know). A cake baker who almost exclusively does wedding cakes and is a very good friend of my Mom's also took it very personal when I said I was hiring a pro (she called my Mom in tears and said it felt like one of her own children betrayed her), so right now she's doing the cake, but if it falls through my venue has a baker that's essentially covered in what we're paying for anyway, or we'll go to the Publix near my parents (they're cakes are awesome) so I do have a backup plan just in case. I guess we'll see how it turns out?

I'm in the minority here, but my cousin is our church priest. He's done tons of weddings per year, and has even performed them in Ireland. I have no problem using him- and if something does go wrong, there's other priests at the church that can perform the ceremony. He would be the person performing the ceremony even if he wasn't related to me. I never recommend using friendors!

I don't know if I hired a friendor or not. My fiance's sister knows our DJ. She bartends for weddings and he has his own wedding DJ business. Anyway, they've worked together and she recommended him. We signed a contract and have had several meetings so far. Is he a friendor because she knows him? We've never met him before we met and he wouldn't have been invited to the wedding if we didn't hire him.

Thank you for clarifying Richard.

I haven't had any bad experiences. I've had my friend do my makeup for Christmas parties and my engagement shoot and it worked out great. She'll be doing my makeup the day of the wedding. I always offer to pay. She doesn't always take it. HaHa! Another friend of mine did the cake for our engagement party and it turned out good. It was slightly dry and I had no problem telling her.

My biggest problem was saying no...i recently told my friend that I wanted her to relax and enjoy my wedding...i know she had her heart set on doing my makeup and we discussed it but I decided I couldn't let her work my wedding day...she should be enjoying it....she thinks something else is going on....and needless to say I feel terrible I hurt her feelings. I'm just hoping I don't lose a friend over this..

Just came to say Amen.

So I feel a little "meh" about the whole friendor thing. I'm eloping so nothing relates to me but my cousin had three friendor experiences during her wedding and the planning process.

1. Groom's female best friend is an amateur photographer who offered to take engagement (really used specifically for save the dates) photos for free. She was timely, but the photos were terrible. Out of about a hundred photos only like 3 were even considered for save the dates. The one they used required heavy editing before it could be used. They had a different photographer for the wedding though (yes, grooms friend knew that was the case) and those photos are amazing.

2. Groom's sister became a Justice of The a Peace to officiate the ceremony. She did a WONDERFUL job and it was incredibly special. Not just saying that cause she's now essentially my sister in law (cousin and I are very very close), but she legitimately did a fantastic job. Truly the exception to the horror stories tell about friendor officiants.

3. Bride's college professor, business partner, and friend did the ceremony music. He is legitimately a professional guitarist and his music is beautiful. I couldn't have imagined the ceremony music in any other form.

Sometimes friendors are not such a terrible thing in my opinion, but I feel like you need to trust that person to do the work and definitely have a contract to save your butt in the event they flake. Probably unpopular opinion but whatever.

My cousin is also a pro DJ who offered to DJ our wedding before we decided to elope and I said NO but definitely asked her for referrals for DJs. Definitely not okay to ask family to work for your wedding (again, exception is "sister in law" as officiant).

My SIL and brother had a photographer friendor. It was her bestfriends boyfriend. Well after the wedding they broke up and he refused to give them the pictures because he was mad at his ex. My brother called me all sorts of mad because his wife was so upset. They eventually received their pictures but only after the guy and girl got back together.

@Teresa ugh that's an awful situation. Literally holding wedding photos hostage, that makes me upset just hearing about it!

I'm definitely opposed to friendors. I have multiple friends who are wedding professionals (photographers, pastry chef, musician) who offered to volunteer their services to the wedding or do it for a reduced rate. I decline. I'd rather hire a professional I don't have a personal relationship with.

@Future Mrs Jennings,

I'm kinda thinking your #3 example is a recommendation or a referral, it doesn't necessarily qualify under friendor as defined above. The #1 is a friendor and the #2 is an exception to the rule, congrats maybe you should start buying lotto tickets, you lucky thing!

My story: My DH's cousin is a successful well known DJ in the town we got married in and I seriously considered his offer of doing our wedding (ceremony & reception). Scratch that, I said yes to him doing it and then I found WW which told me "to let your friends and family, especially those invited, enjoy themselves at the wedding, not work it". Also he was a club DJ which is worlds different from a wedding DJ, many pro DJ's may start out as club DJs before moving into the wedding business and they would even tell you it's two very different things.

I let the cousin graciously back out and convinced DH his cousin would be happier as a guest. He was. I also found out (after he had a drink or two) he was worried of disappointing DH, his family, and our friends if he didn't do a great job. We found an awesome pro DJ who did an amazing job. That's the experience everyone wants--a happy day, a happy ending.

Agree with this. There are professionals for a reason and you get what you pay for (including when it's free). No guest wants to work at the wedding, whether ceremony or reception. If they are not in the wedding party, they prefer being guests.