Blogger world, I need some advice.
Here's the situation. As you know, Josh and I got married in January and we hired one of my friends as our photographer.
Going into it I was careful, having heard many many stories about the awkward, and sometimes downright nasty, situations that can occur when the lines of friendship and professions blur. But, at the end of the day, she does gorgeous photos and she was the one I wanted. Even if she wasn't my friend, I still would have wanted her to be my photographer because her work is so amazing.
I was extra careful to stress that I wasn't asking her a favour as a friend, but wanting to hire her services as a professional. As far as I know we paid full rates, along with extra for her to do a photo album for us.
The day was amazing and, as I knew, her photos were incredible and we got a disc of hundreds of photos in March. So far so good.
Here's the problem. Six months after our wedding, and four months after approving the proof, we still don't have our photo album. The style of our album is very particular (magazine format) and the printer that she's using only does a print run once a month.
In April she told me that she'd missed the print deadline for March, but that the printers had it for April. So I was expecting it sometime in April, maybe early May. But still nothing.
I wouldn't be too worried (though probably a little frustrated) if it wasn't for one other minor detail. She lives in a different city to us and I've been trying to get in touch for a month to find out where things are at and she isn't returning my texts, call or emails.
We have a lot of mutual friends and I've checked in on them and, as far as anyone is aware, there isn't any kind of life crises going on that would explain her non-contact.
What should I do? On one hand I value our friendship and am worried I've somehow offended her without knowing and this isn't about the album but something else. On the other hand, she isn't doing this for love, Josh and I have paid her a not insignificant amount of money to do our album (to try and avoid exactly this kind of situation!), and I can't help but feel that even if she's upset at me for something unrelated, as a professional who's been paid to provide a service, she should do that.
Thoughts?
6 comments:
Wow. That's a hard one. I'd probably give it another week and then try again via phone.
I don't think you're in the wrong, but I always try to give people insane amounts of time to get back with me.
Funny enough when I found your blog just last week or so I loved loved LOVED your wedding photos. They had so much joy and life in them. Even if another couple has fantastic photos, sometimes its more of a model photo shoot, or no joy found.
It's hard with friends.. I'm in the the other camp of I'm a photographer/graphic designer. And I just did some wedding invites for friends etc. If you've paid for them and are paying them, then yes in a perfect world they should get on this thing as fast as their other projects.
Is this a busy season for them? Are they swamped? Sometimes constant reminders are a good thing, I need that daily!
I pray that you get a speedy wonderful reply and the results be fantastic!
I don't know, Kara, it sounds bad. Another photographer friend volunteered to take pictures of my sister's wedding. She did give us a bunch of great prints, but when we tried to get the digital files, she kept putting us off, much like your friend. It turned out in the end that she accidentally lost them all, and she didn't know how to tell us.
That said, you paid your friend. Did you sign a contract? Do you have a copy of it? What are the time lines outlined there? As a business owner, how do her clients contact her? I would make it as business like as possible (cordially of course), because as you said, you paid her a significant amount of money. She needs to give you the same respect as she would give a regular client.
awwww man!!! that's just not fun :( I'm sorry, darling. Wish I could DO something. I'm not sure what to recommend when you can't even get a hold of her.
Man, that's too bad. I suppose if I were you, I would keep trying to contact her.
It is wedding season. Oh, well it's wedding season in America. Maybe she is really busy with shoots? I believe that is a lame excuse, but I'm trying to be nice.
I hope everything works out.
Good news everyone :)
She's been in touch. Turns out what had happened was that the album had been printed but she was unhappy with the quality and so got the money back and had been hunting for someone else to print it.
All going well we should have it in a couple of weeks!
Post a Comment