Gosh. What an uncomfortable experience for you. I must say that in the 350 or more weddings that Julie and I have shot we have never experienced such rude guests. It is probably because we only take on weddings for warm fuzzy people and not cold prickly ones. Nice clients are more fun to work with and are easy to please. Bad clients treat you like staff and have friends like you describe. Every photographer would have had problems at your event. It’s nothing that you are doing wrong other than agreeing to shoot the wedding.

I hope you have recovered.

Best regards,

Damien.

How do you deal with difficult relatives at weddings? I recently was photographing a bride and groom after the ceremony in what was supposed to be a short, private moment with just the two of them. There were a number of problems. The bride and groom wanted to be photographed in a small, badly lit sitting room and declined to follow the idea that I had planned in advance where they would be posed on a sofa. Meanwhile about 15 relatives piled into the room. One knocked a lens on the floor (£150 damage!) And the mother of the groom decided that she would like to take some pictures herself and became very angry when I asked her to wait. She physically pushed me out of the way, saying, ‘Look, you’ve taken lot’s of pictures, it’s my turn now!’ I didn’t say anything, but I feel that I should have been more assertive. Any thoughts? Other than take a bouncer with me! Although that’s a thought… Would love to know how other people handle what is, after all, a well known problem at weddings and so a key skill to have.

thanks!

Fiona

Start with the end in mind with your website. Know your customer journey through your site before they do. Get this book too.

Kindest regards, Damien.

I’d just like to say thanks for pointing me in the direction of this website, your seminar yesterday in Garderen, the Netherlands, was a absolute inspiration. I’d been flagging a bit as the phone hasn’t exactly been ringing off the hook recently but today I’m back with renewed enthusiasm.

Always having had a passion for photography and owning some impressive looking Nikon gear resulted in exactly what you described in your article above, namely being asked to do a friend’s wedding last summer. My God what a hard day’s work that was! And the stress of knowing you’ve only got one chance to get it right, that these lovely people are totally relying on you! But what a fabulous feeling in the days after, in post-processing, when you know you’ve got something really special here. And seeing their faces light up when they viewed the slide-show a week later. Priceless.

I formalized my photography business at the beginning of this year and I have a couple of bookings for weddings this summer as well as doing the odd portrait shoot in my small studio at home. I still have the “Day-Job” but aim to be working part time for the man and the rest for myself within the year.

Thanks again for the kick up the backside, now I must get back to the total rebuild of my website.

I’ve just watched your fantastic ‘The big day’ DVD which I thought was very inspiring.

From the slideshow at the end, showing all the images, I see that you flick between aperature priority and Manual throughout the day. How do you make your decision as to which to use in each situation?

Many thanks

Steve

Does anyone offer a money-back guarrantee or cooling off period on their wedding photography? What do people think about this?

As a photographer who has never had anyone (yet!) respond negatively to any weddings I’ve photographed, might this help remove both risk and the chance of ‘buyer remorse’.

Steve

I do have plans to record videos to show album design. Gary Jorgensen of Jorgensen albums is coming over from Australia to work on this project with Marko and I in the next few months.

Damien.