Expert: Wedding Photographics - 5/25/2009

Question
So, I apparently have the worst luck when it comes to hiring my own wedding photographer.   I've been stood up by TWO different photographers.  When I say stood up, I mean we talked on the phone, e-mailed, set a place, date & time to meet for me to put down my deposit...and then they just disappear before the meeting.  Everything seems fine, they seem polite and friendly, but then No e-mails, no phone call to say "Hey I won't make it", nothing.   I've even called to double check that i didn't mess up the times, but never got a return phone call.  Friday (2 days ago) my finance and I waited to meet with a photographer for an hour, and they just never showed up.


I'm in the process of starting up my own wedding photography business, and plan to advertise the same place I found both photographers (onewed.com).

Even though I would be a BRIDE writing the bad review, I'm worried it would bite me later when starting up the business.

Would this be a bad business move?  I just don't want hostility with other photographers in my area, that could start rumors or who knows what else.  But at the same time, this was really unprofessional, and I think other brides should know about it.  

Answer
Hi Tina,

In my opinion writing reviews about any business should be concerning your overall experience as an actual customer. When consumers read reviews, they want to find out the experience you had as a customer in regard to the products and services you received, how you were treated, how long you had to wait for delivery etc., as a customer.

As far as e-mails, I don't think there is really any valid point in mentioning a lack of e-mail communication. This is because there are so many different reasons why someone else may not have received your e-mail(s) or many different reasons you didn't receive theirs. Depending on how your e-mail client is configured. Sometimes e-mail accounts are passed their limits so they cannot receive any more, sometimes incoming emails are automatically filtered as spam and so you don't see it, sometimes a single character in the address mistyped.  Sometimes, your ISP is having technical difficulties and sometimes your email client installed on your own computer may be having technical difficulties. For these reasons and more, e-mail should not be treated in the exact same way you do telephone communication.

You said you called after the missed appointments and apparently you had to leave messages.  You didn't actually get ahold of anyone on the phone. In these two isolated incidents there can be a number of reasons no one personally answered your call. First, someone in the photographer's own immediate family had a hospital emergency. Also, at least one of the photographers could have been involved in a serious vehicle accident on their way to keep the appointment with you. Someone in the photographer's family passed away and there are many other reasons why the no show and no one personally answering your calls after the missed appointments.

Considering these real possibilities, you might have to ask yourself how it would make you look to write a bad review on one or both of those photographers only to find out that one of those photographers was involved in a serious accident on his or her way to meet you for the appointment.

You said about two days ago you waited for about an hour and another no show. I think since you feel strongly enough about this situation that you wrote me about it, you might consider trying to call those photographers a few more times to see if you can actually get ahold of them. Get it from the horse's mouth.  Since this is Memorial weekend, that might be one or both of those photographer's excuses for not keeping their appointments with you.  If those appointments were made a few weeks or even months ago, those photographers may have made those appointment not realizing it was Memorial weekend. In which case they should have called you to reschedule etc.

Since you are getting ready to go into the wedding photography business yourself, I'll share the flip side of this situation with you.  Yesterday I had a bride who didn't show up for her appointment with me. Every year all photographers have potential customers who make appointments with us.  Sometimes the customer will call us the day before to confirm before we even have the chance to call them to confirm. Sounds great.  But they still don't show.  When we call to see if they would like to reschedule (in case they had an emergency), they hang up on us.  Also, after talking with many different couples you interview, you will develop the ability to tell the difference between a couple who are genuinely seeking a photographer and a couple who are really just spying on you on behalf of one of your competitors. I always hate the waste of time that is!  We once had a couple come meet us who couldn't stay consistent about their wedding day plans. They just downright contradicated themselves on several major points during the two hour meeting. They left after insisting on having a copy of our wedding contract to review while considering us.  Well, a few months later, we found pictures of that same couple on a wedding photography website.  They were wedding photographers themselves and they were using our wedding contract!  They simply switched the names, address and phone number to their own.

Then you also have people who THINK they are going to become photographers, so they will make appointments with several different photographers to try to gain some insight into the biz. What's really sad?  They just wasted everyone's time . . . including their own because they just aren't ready to dedicate themselves to the hard work, time and dollar investment to even start.

You will also have competitors acting like potential customers calling you to see if you have a certain wedding date or group of wedding dates available. When this happens, your time is wasted again on the phone because of a competitor or two who are curious if your businesses is booking a lot more than theirs.

Also, as far as finding photographers on the internet. I wouldn't trust website "directories" which list hundreds of photographers and many who don't even have their own websites. Many of those listings are very out-dated. Some of the so-called photographers listed there are "want-to-be" but then a day or two later they decide they aren't going into the business after all. But that doesn't bother them because the listing on some wedding directory didn't cost them anything. Then some of those directories will not actually pass your request for information to any photographers let alone the photographers who you specificially requested for information.

Thanks for your questions Tina. Best of luck to you.

Wedding Photographer John Wilson
Chattanooga, Tennessee
http://www.weddingphotographics.net