Exchange of person

You Choose the Photographer and Someone Else Shows Up at Your Wedding?

You chose the VIP photographer multi-award-winning, the artist, the " best wedding photographer in the world " , paid a considerable amount... and at your wedding, someone else shows up

This has happened to many brides who have told me about it and were not at all happy to have their photos taken by a stranger instead of the owner of the studio. When they asked for an explanation, they got the same response: my team does the same work I do.

Now, talent, experience, and sensitivity do not work by extension.

So some questions come to mind, if I were a bride: How can a job worth thousands of euros be carried out by a twenty-year-old with little experience? Who shot the photos I saw in your studio when I booked you? What was the point of getting quotes and having meetings if then at the wedding I find myself with a person I didn't choose?

Naturally, I'm referring to situations where this "person exchange" happens regularly, not emergencies where the owner has to be replaced against their will.

This does not mean that having a team is unprofessional: you have to make a distinction between an authorial service and a commercial service. In the authorial service, the owner photographer is irreplaceable, they have a strong and recognizable stylistic imprint. When we talk about a commercial service, we are talking about a recognizable but replicable style that is taught to the entire team, making the members interchangeable to create a "mass-produced" product. The result is still professional, but without the variability and uniqueness of an artistic service.

A matter of taste, there's no wrong choice.

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How to behave and how to prevent unpleasant situations?

1. Ask! Ask the photographer you choose openly who will come to your wedding. Could they lie to you? Yes, that's why there's point number two.

   
   

2. Check how emergency/replacement cases work on the contract you sign. Don't you sign a contract? Run away.

   
   

3. In case of emergency, make sure the substitute is a true professional and not an assistant/apprentice/passerby, so that they have a VAT number and a portfolio.

   
   

4. Ask for reviews from other brides because almost no one writes them publicly.

   
   

5. If you have a bad experience, at least save the future brides with a review!

What would you do if it happened to you?

Let me know in the comments!

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