I know I\'m going to hear it and I\'ll admit I was stupid for the process leading up to the wedding; but here is my story and hopefully someone will learn something from it.
So in August of 2008 my roommates sister asks me to shoot her wedding on August 15, 2009 and asks for pricing. She\'s very young (my age of 22) and through e-mail we agreed to a whopping $350 just to cover my expenses. Nothing signed, just the agreement and then I did confirm over the phone.
So the wedding comes and goes with no payment. I see her quite often and have asked every single time when I could expect to get paid and she tells me to talk to her husband. He then told us to talk to her because she made the agreement. I spent from 3pm to midnight taking photos and I even helped clean the reception hall. That night he did ask me how much he owed at the very end, but he was so out of it (you know...drunk) that I told him we\'ll talk after the honeymoon and he can pay me then. When her mother or father ask why she hasn\'t paid, she says I haven\'t told them a price. I realized I wasn\'t going to get paid so I sent her an invoice, Certified Mail, just so I would have a receipt that she received it.
This was over a month ago, after hearing nothing from them I sent an email yesterday morning asking if they had any intentions to pay because I have some bills coming up that it could pay for.
I got this long winded response back about how the photos are horrible, they didn\'t want a cd with the images, and how \"what do you think wedding photos are? Obviously you don\'t know.\"
So the funny thing is her pictures are posted by her on Facebook and she says \"Just a sample of Tanner\'s amazing work\" and under the photos are comments like \"best pictures ever.\"
So this morning I receive a phone call from the husband cussing me out, telling me he\'s not paying for anything because there was no contract and how he makes the money and she has not right to make decisions and that just comment just blew me away.
So anyways, read this, take a lesson from it. Don\'t work for friends and if you do get everything signed. Trust nobody. I know it\'s been said before, but chalk another one to the loss column.
Nov 13, 2009 at 02:34 PM
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