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Careers: Photography/Refundable Wedding Photography Deposits?

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Expert: - 4/7/2009


Question
I'm starting a wedding photography business and was wondering how you handle deposits.  Do you charge a deposit at time of contract signing? What, if any, deposits should be non-refundable? Thanks for your help.
Becky

Answer

DVD Wedding Photograph
Hi Becky,

Thank you for your wedding photography business questions. For the convenience of other All Experts readers interested in the issue of refundable & nonrefundable deposits, I will include some related material from my old website. This web page has since been removed as I feel it is too long and dry to keep people who are considering my wedding photography services on my website:

Question: Why do you have a nonrefundable retainer fee to reserve the wedding date and time?

Answer: Most all established professional photographers have a non-refundable reservation retainer. This provides compensation to the photographer for the loss of income the photographer would have received from another wedding date which could have been retained by another customer for a wedding not canceled. So only the fees paid to reserve us for the wedding date and time are kept as liquidated damages if the wedding is canceled for any reason. The legal foundation of the non-refundable reservation retainer is that the photographer will not reserve any other wedding for that date and time and for this reason the payments are legally non-refundable retainer payments as renumeration for other work that is lost as a result of the retained wedding date.

The customer is NOT paying in advance for ANY services. If the customer were paying in advance for future services, then those payments would be refundable by law whether the photographer calls them non-refundable or not. The photographer would be required by law to refund money not earned because payments in advance for services not rendered must be refunded. For these reasons, it is important that our customers understand that all payments which are non-refundable retainer fees are simply for the purpose of reserving the specified wedding date and time on the contract. We simply agree that as long as your wedding date and time is not canceled or changed, we will provide you wedding photography services as described on the contract.

However, if the client chooses to order a wedding album or any other photo products on OUR wedding contract (to lock in a price for example) that money is refundable. All sales tax paid is always refundable with a canceled contract. No matter what a photographer's contract states, sales tax MUST always be refunded to the customer for a canceled wedding.  The photographer who keeps sales taxes on a canceled contract or wedding is committing sales tax fraud.

Of course, many other photographers will keep all money paid on the contract, even money paid on wedding albums and all the sales tax. Be sure to carefully read their photography contract. (Photographers who do not offer DVD Wedding Photography Collections REQUIRE you to purchase an album package.  After all, it is the only way to receive anything tangible since they will not provide you the high resolution copyright released wedding images. Their album(s) are an integral part of the photography services they sell you on the contract. So if you cancel the wedding or even have to reschedule for another day, all the money paid on some album package is kept by those photographers as liquidated damages. That is a very heart-wrenching thought to most people and for the photographer to keep the fees paid towards the purchase of album assembly services and even the sales taxes collected is actually illegal.

ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS IN ALL STATES ARE REQUIRED BY LAW TO REFUND MONEY ON A WEDDING CONTRACT WHICH IS NOT SPECIFIED AS PART OF THE RETAINER MONEY.  IN OTHER WORDS, PHOTOGRAPHERS CAN ONLY LEGALLY KEEP THE RETAINER MONEY.  ANY MONEY PAID TOWARDS THE PURCHASE OF FUTURE PRODUCTS SUCH AS WEDDING ALBUMS AND ON WHICH SALES TAXES HAVE BEEN COLLECTED - MUST BE REFUNDED BY LAW.  NO WEDDING CONTRACT DESPITE WHAT IT MAY STATE IN THE PROVISIONS CANNOT LEGALIZE SALES TAX FRAUD OR THEFT OF A CUSTOMER'S MONEY PAID TOWARDS THE PURCHASE OF ANY FUTURE PRODUCTS.

On your wedding contract, the best legal word to use for "non-refundable deposits" is "retainer".  In some states the word "deposit" alone means money which IS refundable. By saying "non-refundable retainer" it is clear and legally enforceable you are referring to payments the client is not entitled to get back (except under some special conditions - like it being your fault for not making it to the wedding to shoot). But you MUST make this distinction: Any money you collect which you want to be legally non-refundable retainer money must be for the sole purpose of reserving the wedding date and time and you must on the contract clearly state what that amount of money is. If that is not clear on the contract, the customer may honestly believe (and a judge as well) that all other money was being paid for the future wedding photography services and/or products.  If the wedding is canceled, the photographer will be legally required to refund money that was paid for services and/or products not rendered including sales taxes.

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Something else from my old website:

ALBUM PACKAGE PHOTOGRAPHERS:

Some photographers claim they do not "hide over-priced talent fees in an album package". However, the album package photographers I've spoken with admit they do NOT itemize their fees, album costs and other expenses on the wedding photography contract. Itemizing prices for products and services on a contract is a business custom even internationally expected in an effort to be above board and completely honest with full disclosure in a business dealing. If album package photographers do not feel their talent fees are over-priced, why don't they itemize those fees on the contract instead of hiding them in the album package price? (Incidentally, in order for photographers to legally protect the nonrefundable retainer fee on their contract, the exact amount of the nonrefundable retainer fee MUST be itemized. If this is not done, a court can find on behalf of the consumer that those deposits are refundable).

It is photographers who require the purchase of album packages who are under pressure to seek percentages of the bride's total Wedding Day budget in order to increase their profit/price ratio. Knowing that many photographers are seeking ways to pocket more money for their album packages, there are now photo labs on the band wagon which charge photographers MEMBERSHIP FEES ($99 per month) and COMMISSIONS per consumer web orders and for other lab services to "help" those photographers pocket more money. All of this driving up the cost of pro wedding photography services even higher among photographers who force album package products on their customers. Album packaging has truly become an expensive way for photographers to make their work more saleable (look better) and to demand higher talent fees.

DVD WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER BUSINESS MODEL: Exceptionally talented wedding photographers who price their photography/photo shop talent itself fairly on DVD coverage collections can get off that money hungry machine. DVD wedding photographers do NOT pay lab membership fees and then only pay flat lab production charges for prints & finishing instead of percentages of the photographer's sales price. DVD wedding photographers consider their album design and assembly services to be legitimate and valuable. We do not have to keep the high resolution images and copyright in order to MAKE our customers use our album design and assembly services! Customers who do not use our album and design services simply give us more time for other business tasks or even more personal time. Besides, there are dozens of online album companies which have invested millions of dollars in creating very high quality albums in a very efficient operation which photographers CANNOT duplicate. Brides can get better constructed albums, get them faster and at lower cost than through their own photographer - when the bride has her photos on DVDs. Why make the photographer a middleman when the bride with photos on DVD can go directly to the album manufacturer herself?

Why shouldn't brides be able to invest up front in the photography/photo shop talents of her wedding photographer in the form of the DVD Wedding Day coverage collection? Albums and frames are products she can easily get at her convenience anytime after the big day. She will anyway as the years go by and frames and albums will need maintained and replaced. But what is really important before her Wedding Day is being able to retain the wedding photographer she really wants - not the albums, frames and any other products she can easily get anytime later. The vast majority of brides really want professional wedding photography itself. Everything else is readily available anytime to the bride who has her wedding images on DVDs.

DVD wedding photographers simply sell their photography & photo shop talent itself in the form of DVD coverage collections which consist of a certain contracted number of photographers over a period of time with a certain guaranteed range of custom processed images. What could be simpler?

There are even photographers who want to make you pay in advance for wedding album assembly services and that money is simply applied as CREDIT towards the purchase. Why do they do that? Why not simply let you pay that money later only IF you want an album from them? Even if the only way to get any images from that photographer is to pay for some album package, why not let you pay at the time the photographer is ready to sit down with you to determine which album package you must purchase? Frankly, the reason is because they want to keep all your money since their contract makes that money non-refundable if the wedding date is canceled or even rescheduled. That's a shame! After all, they would have had to use at least some of that money to actually produce your album to provide to you. So why not at least refund you that portion of the money you paid? But they won't! At least, not until you take them to court and make them refund you for services not rendered.

SUMMARY

There are a LOT of disadvantages to the customers of wedding photographers who:

* Do NOT provide you a copyright release,
* Do NOT provide you the high resolution photo-quality images and
* Charge you HIGH PRICES for prints and albums,
* Which they require you to purchase,
* Even before you have seen your own wedding photos!
* Then maybe they will sell you the hi-res images for a lot more money.
* But if your wedding date is canceled or rescheduled, they keep ALL the deposits you paid.

What happens when your album gets lost or damaged? You have to pay out a lot more money. But what if the photographer has moved? Gone out of business? Retired? You do NOT have to put up with all that.

Professional and beautiful wedding photography does not have to be as expensive as many album package photographers have priced it.

There are nothing but advantages to you when you select a professional wedding photographer who provides you hundreds of retouched full-resolution images on designer DVDs of your Wedding Day with copyright release. After you review you wedding images, you may then order a wedding album from the photographer IF you want to. It is not required. And then, you only pay at the time you order the album(s). If you prefer, you may upload your wedding images to any one of the dozens of online album companies to acquire a beautiful and professional quality wedding album at a much better price than from some photographer who requires you purchase from him/her. And, you will always have your DVD album of digitally mastered images from which you may always have additional photographs and albums produced as the years go by.

Wedding Photographer John Wilson
Wedding Photographics
Chattanooga, Tennessee
http://www.weddingphotographics.net
Telephone: 423-468-9621

Wedding Photographics

Expertise

I have over 30 years of wedding photography experience. I can comprehensively answer questions relating directly to the art, science and business of wedding photography. Photoshop and other photo editing software and wedding album design and assembly. My website http://www.weddingphotographics.net

Experience

Over 30 years wedding photography and wedding album design and assembly experience.

Education/Credentials
I have attended numerous wedding photography workshops, seminars and photography conventions over the years. I constantly self-study from over 100 books on wedding photography, wedding video, digital photography, photoshop, fotofusion and other photography and multimedia educational materials.

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