When we started planning our wedding, one of the first things we did was look for a good photographer for our special day. We met face to face with about 4-5 of them that work here locally and just about tapped out the market on our options. We settled on a guy that showed us some very nice photos in an album that we very nice looking and professionally done. We signed an agreement with him and paid our $200.00 deposit for his "guaranteed services", then the trouble began. We became suspicious when our calls with questions went unanswered for several weeks a few months after we met. We came to find out, he had moved 4 hours away with a new job for a newspaper and had neglected to tell us up front of this change. We were a little concerned and questioned his ability to come through on our wedding day, but he insisted he would show up and do the job he had promised a few months earlier. Well, anyway, our special day came around and he showed up, but when he showed up, he was obviously in a hurry for something else when he had clearly stated in his contract and verbally on several occasions that his time was "unlimited" to get the photos we would want. He stated that he had a baseball game to photograph that had been rescheduled due to the heavy rain the day before our wedding day. Naturally, being extremely busy as the bride and groom, we were too exhausted and too taken aback to really dispute the issue with him and he left shortly after taking our family photos and having never shown up to our reception at all for the cake cutting or any of the other stuff. We were incensed, but a little too worn out and tired to put up a fight on that day.
Now the fun begins! A month or so after our wedding, we e-mail him inquiring about our photos and when they will be done. His reply is, "I'm working on them, I'll have them out by the end of the week." For several weeks this goes on and on, us asking and him delaying. Keep in mind, our wedding was May 25th, we received the photos yesterday (September 6th) finally. We open the box to find the 11x17 photo we ordered printed off an inkjet printer on what he calls "high quality" Kodak inkjet paper. Keep in mind also that it does not state "photo paper", it simply states "inkjet paper" on the back of it. The photo is not retouched, it's badly moired and makes my wife and I look like we have a skin condition that a late night infomercial might be able to fix. We also had many photos of our 5x7's that we never wanted printed. We sent him a comprehensive list complete with a .zip file containing the proofs of the images we wanted printed. The 5x7's were obviously cut by hand and appear to have been printed on a larger sheet of "no name brand, nothing" inkjet paper. There is no watermark whatsoever on the back of the paper that the 5x7's are printed on. Naturally, we called him and asked what the deal was and he seemed oblivious to the fact that he had gotten paid nearly $600.00 for prints that look like they came off a $75 Lexmark printer made two years ago! Needless to say, I considered finding our local "Guido" to have him "tuned up a bit", but that is not the answer.
Now, my question for anyone wishing to help me out here. What should I do? Small claims court for breach of contract and false representation of his work is my first thought. I would like to have a full refund, including the "non-refundable $200.00 deposit", the original photos he took with his 5 megapixel digital camera (he wants to charge us another $200.00 for the rights to those), and possibly even additional costs for tuxedo rental(~ $50), flowers (~ $50) and cleaning and pressing for my wife's dress (~ $100) so that we can go to another photo studio and redo our pictures. Is that too much to ask for in court? We also paid him the remainder of his fee on our wedding day ($375) with a Discover Card check, so we are considering right now whether or not we should dispute the charge with them, or take the whole deal to small claims court. I am extremely angry about this whole deal. He called back last night close to 10pm a little "upset" that we have questioned his quality work. My wife made several points to him, stating that we could take the images to Wal-Mart and get prints 10x better than what he has sent us. She also brought up that the "stock paper" he used does not even have the watermark on the back that should state "not to be reproduced" or whatever it says that would prevent us from taking them to Wal-Mart and slapping them on the Kodak photo machine and getting better prints than he gave us.
What do you all think. I'd like anyone with similar experience to weigh in on the matter and any legal advice on damages, etc that you can suggest would be great. Thanks.
PS-forgot to say that my friend who brought his digital camera took better pictures and they printed a million times better off my HP inkjet than what this guy is trying to pass off on us. We paid him in all the beer he could drink from the keg that came with our reception package.
Now the fun begins! A month or so after our wedding, we e-mail him inquiring about our photos and when they will be done. His reply is, "I'm working on them, I'll have them out by the end of the week." For several weeks this goes on and on, us asking and him delaying. Keep in mind, our wedding was May 25th, we received the photos yesterday (September 6th) finally. We open the box to find the 11x17 photo we ordered printed off an inkjet printer on what he calls "high quality" Kodak inkjet paper. Keep in mind also that it does not state "photo paper", it simply states "inkjet paper" on the back of it. The photo is not retouched, it's badly moired and makes my wife and I look like we have a skin condition that a late night infomercial might be able to fix. We also had many photos of our 5x7's that we never wanted printed. We sent him a comprehensive list complete with a .zip file containing the proofs of the images we wanted printed. The 5x7's were obviously cut by hand and appear to have been printed on a larger sheet of "no name brand, nothing" inkjet paper. There is no watermark whatsoever on the back of the paper that the 5x7's are printed on. Naturally, we called him and asked what the deal was and he seemed oblivious to the fact that he had gotten paid nearly $600.00 for prints that look like they came off a $75 Lexmark printer made two years ago! Needless to say, I considered finding our local "Guido" to have him "tuned up a bit", but that is not the answer.
Now, my question for anyone wishing to help me out here. What should I do? Small claims court for breach of contract and false representation of his work is my first thought. I would like to have a full refund, including the "non-refundable $200.00 deposit", the original photos he took with his 5 megapixel digital camera (he wants to charge us another $200.00 for the rights to those), and possibly even additional costs for tuxedo rental(~ $50), flowers (~ $50) and cleaning and pressing for my wife's dress (~ $100) so that we can go to another photo studio and redo our pictures. Is that too much to ask for in court? We also paid him the remainder of his fee on our wedding day ($375) with a Discover Card check, so we are considering right now whether or not we should dispute the charge with them, or take the whole deal to small claims court. I am extremely angry about this whole deal. He called back last night close to 10pm a little "upset" that we have questioned his quality work. My wife made several points to him, stating that we could take the images to Wal-Mart and get prints 10x better than what he has sent us. She also brought up that the "stock paper" he used does not even have the watermark on the back that should state "not to be reproduced" or whatever it says that would prevent us from taking them to Wal-Mart and slapping them on the Kodak photo machine and getting better prints than he gave us.
What do you all think. I'd like anyone with similar experience to weigh in on the matter and any legal advice on damages, etc that you can suggest would be great. Thanks.
PS-forgot to say that my friend who brought his digital camera took better pictures and they printed a million times better off my HP inkjet than what this guy is trying to pass off on us. We paid him in all the beer he could drink from the keg that came with our reception package.
We went with a Korean guy, that was a friend of a friend of the family (bad mistake). His pictures just stucked. I really wish one of my friends had my digital camera to take pics instead. 
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