Help! Photographer lost some of our photos! (long)

Slightly related/unrelated but in my many email to many different vendors the 12+ photographers I’ve reached out to have been horrible at responding in a timely manner and it’s super off-putting to me and makes me wonder why photographers are like that.

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Yeah, I'm not sure what happened exactly.

I'm sorry your first wedding photos turned out so badly. That must have been infuriating. The people in the photos are what I'll be missing the most. We had relatives who don't fly drive across the country for us. My grandparents who are nearing 90 "won" the anniversary dance. We haven't (and probably never will) have as many friends and family in one place ever.

I know guests took photos during the reception, but it's hard to get them all to take the time to get them to me. I also don't want to post that I don't have professional photos because I'm holding onto the hope that I will.

It is a bit weird she doesnt upload them into the cloud/dropbox/google photos immediately. Unless she was trying to do that when her computer crashed. I highly recommend to have her do a photoshoot in your wedding dress to get more shots. Yes its not your wedding day, there is no crazy excitement or anything BUT i think you might regret it if you dont do it this close to the wedding.

When you speak w her i would recommend to not freak out or yell or threat. just calmly explain how heartbreaking this is and how you cant believe this has happened to you and that there has to be a way to fix it - either by maybe still finding the photos or doing another photoshoot or at least have her refund you the money so you can find another photographer to do that shoot. If she is nasty or unresponsive I would mention that there is yelp, ww, the knot etc to leave a lousy review on... if not for something she had no control over (let's say her computer did crash) but for lack of communication, compassion and dignity in how she handled it.

That is terrible, I am so sorry that some of your pictures may have been lost. I agree with the advice to wait until next week (as hard as that would be) to give her time to look for photos or take the stills from video. I hope she can come up with something amazing for you!

So sorry you’re having to go through this! I agree w/ all of what Nicole said. This makes no sense at all & something from her story is missing smh I would give it another week but definitely go after this. Per her contract she is liable, owes you your deposit back & still needs to try to “recover” the photos that it sounds like she doesn’t have in the fist place so she needs to accomodate you w/ the other shots as promised. I’d also leave a review w/ the BBB & on any website sharing my experience. & that’s not to slander her, but I would hate for this to happen to me & know I could’ve potentially saved another bride from experiencing the same thing.

Any good photographer backs up his/her photos externally from their computer. So she should have them somewhere, if not- demand a partial refund because that never should happen.
Im soo sorry this happened to you and hope it can be fixed

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I agree. She's been taking photos for years so I assumed she'd back up her photos everywhere, at least until she delivered them to her clients.

I appreciate the thought, but I don't want more photos of my wedding dress. It's the reception that I'm looking for.

Thank you all for your sympathy and advice! It really makes me feel better.

I'll wait until next week to email her for an update to see if she sent her hard drive out to be recovered. From there I'll decide what I want to ask of her. I'm confident she'll never let this happen again.

I'm grateful that she has access to the RAW video so at least I'll get "snapshots" and actual footage of the event. I'll try to remember to come back and update you all on what happens.

Thank you so much

Oh my gooooodness! This sounds awful. I wouldn’t worry about being polite if I were you. Keep bothering her until you get a complete story! Like PPs have mentioned, the originals should be on the SD card. Unless she wipes the SD cards clean after each wedding, which wouldn’t be professional at all (I wipe my SD cards so I don’t have to keep buying new ones, but only after the photos have been delivered to the clients and I know it’s safe to delete the originals like this). Good luck!!!

From how I read that is does seem that she is liable to pay back deposit and refund if she is not able to recover your pictures. I'm hoping by some miracle she's able to have her computer fixed and everything be restored to have your wedding pictures. I would give a week maximum before reaching out again and see what comes of the situation. If you don't get these pics it's definitely violation and she should comprehend that too.

Lol by demanding to receive what you paid for? You could take her to court for this because it's over 500 bucks.

The wording sounds like she will give you your money back but you cannot sue for damages...I would definitely run it by a lawyer.

I am so sorry that this has happened. There are no words....

Breach of a contract by the vendor are grounds for being sued. you lost money amd deserve it refunded or for the service to be completed. This is serious. Do not give up. You have the right to push.

Oh, my God, this is really irritating. Have you ever asked her computer about the cause of the crash? If it is her personal problem, she must take responsibility for it. In any case, she should try her best to rescue lost photos, no matter what method. Isn't there a lot of computer data recovery tools now? She must do this.

I am so sorry for the loss of your photos.

I actually used to shoot wedding photos myself until something like that happened to me. I had given the couple a deal of doing their engagement photos and wedding photos for just $700 bucks. I had driven to the location that was an hour there and back, worked for 12 hours that day, spent $200 plus on just the lenses, not to mention back up cards and batteries. Something happened to one of the memory cards that had the ceremony photos on it I refunded the couple all of their money, (knowing this now I would not have sent them all their money back because I had done my job even if some of the photos were missing; not every photo is guaranteed) I was able to send them 700 plus photos of the getting ready, family photos, and the location, and everything else. Anything I could think of to ease the pain.

I sent the card in to a company to retrieve the photos for $200 but the place said that the card had malfunctioned and that most likely I wouldn't be able to get any photos off of it. I remember telling the bride what had happened. She was very upset and I do not blame her one single bit. You get one chance at wedding photos. honestly it was one of the worst and darkest situations I've ever had to go through as a photographer and I wasn't even the couple so I cannot imagine their pain. I no longer shoot wedding photos because of this exact reason and I could never ever have something like that ever happen again and hurt another couple.

But what I have learned is that all that time and work that I put into that wedding, along with my heart and soul because photography is my craft and my passion, and I love making people feel good and feel beautiful, I learned that there wasn't anything I could do to fix what happened. Electronics do brake. But also that I would have nothing to gain from losing the photos (I had a bridesmaid tell me that I had broken the card on purpose). I wouldn't have put in all that hardworking to mess it up and hurt someone. I even got married a few months later and I remember sitting down with my photographer and telling her that if she lost the photos; it would be okay. not ideal and absolutely would be heart breaking, I can't imagine, but at least I got married to the love of my life. You should get some money back unless you did sign the contract that protects your photographer (although they might offer a free shoot or to return some of the money) but I can tell you that being in those shoes... it's not something a photographer would ever want to purposely do or feel good about doing. Even the ones who may not care as much; their reputation as a photographer is on the line. I hope this helps! Definitely check out your contract to see if it says anything about getting some sort of reimbursement!

View Quoted Comment I used to be a wedding photographer as well, back in the days of film, let me tell you, it was really stressful until the negatives and proofs came back and you knew you got most of the expected photos. Years after I retired, my daughter fell in love with wedding photography, I couldn’t talk her out of it. Now, even though her contract does in NO WAY GUARANTEE that any specific image will turn out and be delivered as a part of the final package, she has a bride flipping out and asking for a 20% refund because 11 specific images (out of over 800 amazing images delivered) did not write to the card or back up card. She spent over 40 hours carefully going over all the cards from the wedding, she used recovery software to see if the files were there but somehow deleted, she even took all the cards into her computer specialist to have him run his recovery programs. NOTHING. Now, a wedding gallery that is otherwise stunning, is resulting in a request for 20% refund. All the the people in the missing shots were in other group shots, so not one person was actually missed, just specific small group combinations. The bride is “devastated”!!! Personally, reading these posts from people who think the world is ending because a few photos didn’t come out, is well, disheartening. The brides of today are so deeply shallow and immature due to their pinterest expectations that they will totally ignore hundreds of amazingly beautiful images of the love and joy of their wedding day because a few specific photos go missing. As a woman married 40 years, who has supported her husband through a near terminal illness and then multiple organ transplant, I can only say grow up and have some gratitude for what you do have. I feel so sorry for your husbands.