Tomorrow will be our two month anniversary … and we’re still wedding photo-less. If you recall, an amazing photographer was our top priority for the wedding. Our photographer, a professional (read: member of WPJA, expensive-$3500, and reputable. This wasn’t some budget Craigslist photographer) had originally told us it would take 4-6 weeks to get our photos. About 5 weeks into that timeframe, she sent us an e-mail saying she had been very sick, and was going to have surgery the next day, but that it was nothing life threatening. She was going to be late getting our photos back to us.
I felt bad for her. She has a young son and it was the week before Christmas. It must be awful to have something like that happen around the holidays. Admittedly, I was also kind of disappointed that our photographs would be late, but understood that these things happen. When I was 24, I was hospitalized very unexpectedly with an infected gallbladder and was out of commission for about a week after my surgery. Not to mention that I was feeling like crap for nearly a week before I dragged myself to the ER when the pain got unbearable.
We e-mailed her back, told her that we hoped she felt better soon, and just asked if our photos were safe and sound. I started having visions that this was some excuse that she was giving, and that somehow all of our photos had been lost in a hard drive crash or something and she was just waiting to see if the photos could be recovered (seriously, like very detailed scenarios were playing out in my head). What can I say, I’m a cynic. She e-mailed us back (abeit three days later) and said our photos were safe and sound.
I should point out that she returned our engagement photos back to us two weeks early! She had told us it would take about four weeks, but we got them back in like two weeks. And they were amazing photos.
Last week, on New Year’s Day, we e-mailed her to wish her a Happy New Year and to say that we hoped she was feeling better. We also asked if she had an estimated timeframe for returning our photos. She e-mailed us back two days later, saying she was feeling better and was hoping to get our photos back to us next week (meaning this week now). She was very apologetic, saying that this has never happened before, and that it was literally giving her nightmares.
It’s Tuesday, and I’m trying not to be impatient. But it’s tough. I don’t want to keep e-mailing her, because I don’t want her to rush through our photos either. I want to make sure they get all of her creative attention. To further complicate matters, we were hoping to include one of our professional wedding photos on our thank you cards, so now we’re very late sending those out.
Any advice? Should we apply more pressure to get our photos back more quickly? Should we ask for a partial refund? Or would that put us in the real jerk category?
