Comments on: Wedding Contracts – I’ll show you mine if you…

By: damien

damien — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:35:40 +0000

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for your legal advice. It is important to get these things right from the start and you have demonstrated just why that is. Regards, Damien.

By: Matthew Wells

Matthew Wells — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:58:37 +0000

Very Important!! – from a Law graduate turned photographer!
Regardless of how good your terms and contract are, make sure that, that they are actually incorporated into the contract before or at the time the contract takes place – which is when there is acceptance of an offer. Many businesses out there, in all fields, fail in this regard, and its very easy to do so. Then, if there is a dispute, and the other side take the right advice, they could suceed in having any terms you are seeking to rely on excluded.

Here is an example: someone contacts you and asks you to shoot their wedding by email, you reply with the cost and say you are available on that day. They respond accepting. Subsequently they come and see you and you get them to sign your contract and terms. In this example you could be precluded from relying on these terms to protect your position in the contract. The contract was already concluded when they came to see you, and it’s a hard and fast rule of the law of contract that you can’t incorporate terms after this point.

It never ceases to amaze me how many companies spend a lot of money drafting excellent terms, but fail to incorporate them into the contract. The other classic one is terms printed on the reverse of an invoice – again these are not incorporated because an invoice is issued persuant to an already concluded contract (usually). If there was a course of dealings – ie. if the same terms were issued on future invoices for future deals then they potentially could become incorporated, but it’s far from satisfactory.

In this area check out:

Olley V Marlborough Court Ltd [1949]
Interfoto Picture Library Ltd V Stiletto Visual Programmes Ltd [1989]
Poseidon Freight Forwarding Co. Ltd. V Davies Turner Southern Ltd [1996]
Thornton V Shoe Lane Parking [1971] (a Lord Denning classic)

Matt

By: damien

damien — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:32:03 +0000

Thanks Sarah,

Information like this is just what we all need to share and learn from.

Damien.

By: Sarah Vivienne

Sarah Vivienne — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:25:38 +0000

I sought advice on this earlier this year from a lawyer – his recommendation was to add a clause that specifies in which country/state the contract is governed by.

My contract states ‘this contract is governed by the laws of England and is subject to the jurisdiction of the English courts’.

That way the contract will hold wherever the wedding or client is, and if I ever do have to attend court it will be in England and not involve travel out of the country.

Hope this helps.

Sarah

By: damien

damien — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:05:41 +0000

Hi John,

My answer is that I’m not sure. The vast majority of contract law is common sense, the rest is the sort of stuff only professionals can understand;-) I’d seek advice from a solicitor for the final tweaks.

We have used the same contract for our US clients getting married in Europe, London clients getting married in Scotland and just about every combination of UK weddings. Thankfully we have never had to test the contract in a court of law.

Kind regards,

Damien.

By: JohnL

JohnL — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:50:31 +0000

Damien,

Its great to see you peel-back the layers of the business onion so deep, alongside your great photography. Do you need to tweak the contract or other Ts & Cs when shooting through the UK eg. NI vs Scottishvs English law ?