If you’re planning a wedding or have recently had one, then you’ve likely received plenty of advice on what to look for when choosing a wedding photographer. But what happens when the wedding photographer you’ve chosen, despite having a good reputation and excellent portfolio of wedding album pictures, hands you a stack of wedding pictures that simply don’t meet your expectations?
My wife and I experienced this problem, and nearly two years after we have been married, we still have not gone back to the wedding photographer to have our wedding album made, simply because we were terribly unhappy with the bad wedding pictures. Luckily, our wedding video was spectacular, and has served to be the ultimate source of wedding memories. Our wedding photos simply do not do the happy occasion any justice.
There are options to remedy this, but before I go into detail about that, let me explain the multitude of problems with our own bad wedding pictures. These problems can unfortunately be quite common, but they can be fixed.
My wife and I had visited several wedding photographers and finally made our choice after looking through what must have been nearly a hundred wedding photo albums over the span of a few weeks. We chose our photographer based on good reviews, the quality and content of the wedding photos we viewed in sample wedding albums, price, and the meeting with the main photographer himself.
We were informed that a different photographer would be shooting our wedding, and this should have been a red flag, but as we were shown several albums depicting this photographers work, we felt fairly confident that our wedding pictures would be wonderful.
Unfortunately, upon receiving the wedding pictures, we were severely disappointed. To begin with, there was a very low amount of wedding photos taken. Nearly every wedding photographer we spoke to stated that at least 300 wedding pictures would be taken, and the count is usually much more. Our wedding photo count was only 280. The majority of these pictures were stills of family and of me and my wife.
The bad wedding pictures were lacking many of the other candid pictures you would expect to see, such as people dancing. There were only a few of these. Also, in regards to truly important shots, such as my wife tossing the bouquet, there was only a single photo. This meant that when it came time to choosing pictures for the wedding album, there were in many cases only one photograph to choose, and if it was a bad wedding photo, then it was unusable. Subsequently, we don’t have one single decent shot of my wife tossing the bouquet, as well as other important wedding pictures.
The bad wedding pictures were also very dark, even outdoor shots, in which normal shadows made parts of wedding photos nearly black. The indoor shots were incredibly worse. In each and every photograph, you saw only the main subject of the wedding photo, and everything behind that person was simply black darkness. If you were wearing a black tuxedo, or had dark hair, then there was nearly no contrast between these elements and the darkness, it was simply all black. And yes, the photographer did have a lighting assistant with him!
These bad wedding pictures also failed to capture the beauty of the catering hall we had chosen, any of the wonderful floral centerpieces, and many other elements and excitement of the occasion. My uncle, using a small digital camera, not only gave us much better candid shots, but also managed to capture the more meaningful moments better than the professional wedding photographer.
Should such a thing happen to you, there are several options you can consider that can hopefully improve upon or restore your bad wedding pictures to what they should be. Of course, much of these options will also depend on how amiable your wedding photographer is.
Luckily, after meeting with the owner of the wedding photography studio and expressing my concerns, he was more than willing to oblige in correcting the bad wedding pictures as best he could.
Thanks to the modern technology of the digital age, photo retouching can be a very easy and efficient process. If you receive bad wedding pictures, they may be able to be adjusted digitally, which can result in a world of difference. Dark pictures, such as mine, can be easily lightened, Colors can be easily adjusted. Your photographer should be willing to do this for you at no cost, as it is his responsibility to ensure that you are happy with your wedding pictures.
Because the owner of the photography studio also agreed that the wedding photo count was somewhat light, and because there were several important shots either not photographed or photographed badly, we were able to get a small refund. However, chances are most wedding photographers will be highly reluctant to give you back any money, and I dare-say we were lucky in this case, but I presented a strong argument, and got the owner to reluctantly agree that the wedding pictures were bad.
If you receive bad wedding pictures, it is important to remain calm. Do not speak angrily to the wedding photographer, or it is very likely that the problem will not be resolved as a result of tempers flaring. Instead, take a few moments to examine the bad wedding pictures, noting the problems, and then explain to the photographer what exactly you are unhappy without being insulting or overly angry. Visibly upset works much better. In most cases, you will find the photographer eager to allay your concerns, as his reputation is at stake. If there are others in the office looking at wedding photo albums, your photographer will likely leap to help you quickly, as he won’t want the discussion to scare away any potential customers..
If you have not had your wedding yet, then be sure to let your wedding photographer know on the day of your wedding what specifically you want pictures of. I would have thought our photographer would have possessed enough common sense to take more than one shot of important moments, and of the hall and table settings, etc., but I was wrong.
I was luckily able to remedy this by using still shots from our wedding video. You can do this also should you find yourself missing wedding pictures and you also have a wedding video. If you had your wedding video done my another company, work with them to have them create some stills for you, or, if you are familiar with using video editing software, you may be able to do this yourself. Then you can save the stills on a CD and bring it to the wedding photographer to add to the wedding album.
Our wedding photographer even promised that he can manipulate some of the bad wedding pictures to give them a totally new, better appearance. Besides adjusting the lighting and colors if necessary, he can take a good face of a guest from one photo and use it to cover a bad face of the same guest on another bad wedding photo.
So remember, if you receive bad wedding pictures, all is not lost. Hopefully, if your wedding photographer is reputable, and if you approach him with your problems professionally, he will be willing to work with you to fix any problems, and may even have additional suggestions on how to make the bad wedding pictures better.
