British-Asian couples have spoken of their anger and frustration after waiting up to a year to receive their wedding pictures and videos from photographers.
Some couples have taken to Twitter and Facebook to complain about their problems with photographers over the quality of the images and their false promises.
Sara*, 29, paid £900 for images and a video for her wedding in London in 2014.
She told Eastern Eye it was the “most tragic experience of my life” after waiting around eight months for the album which had poor quality images.
“During the wedding, they kept on making us do things over and over to get the shot right, which delayed our schedule and most of our guests left before the cake cutting,” Sara said. “When we asked them when we would get our video and photos, they said in a few weeks, so we believed them.
“After two months they got back to us with pictures on the USB which we had to choose from. It was horrible, not one decent family photo was taken properly.
“They said the album and video would be done in two months’ time. Seven months passed so we contacted them again. They got back to us after a month or so and said the video and photos were ready.
“When we saw the video, the microphone was muted during our ceremony, and the lighting was bad.”
Another couple said they had “given up” contacting the photographer and have yet to receive the DVD of their wedding in 2015.
Annika*, 26, paid £1,500 to a photographer to capture her registry and nikkah ceremony in London earlier this summer.
She told Eastern Eye the photographer said he would send the photographs and video within two weeks but she ended up waiting months.
“The photographer we selected to capture the moments of the best day in our lives let us down,” she said. “Having chased him several times, he sent us the pictures after two months. When we received the CD, half of the pictures had not been edited so we asked him to do it again.
“When it came to the video, we received several excuses and he started ignoring our messages. Luckily he contacted us five months later with a draft of the video.
“We feel as we hadn’t made the full payment to him, he contacted us eventually.
“I appreciate that in the industry it is common practice to pay all costs upfront, but I would advise people to find professionals who are prepared to accept a deposit and the remainder of the payment once the work has been completed satisfactorily and dispatched.”
Amjad Malik, a solicitor in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, said couples can take their wedding photographer to court or report them to Trading Standards if they signed a contract.
He said: “Anyone hiring services of any service provider in the community must expect the contract to be honoured within the stipulated time.
“Otherwise a breach of contract action may be brought in local county court under civil law for breaching sales of goods and or services Act in UK and damages may be claimed as well as costs.”
Wedding photographers, some of whom have full-time jobs, have explained the reasons why delays can occur in sending married couples their images.
One wrote on Facebook it was due to being swamped by bookings to take photographs of ceremonies from July till October, while another said on Twitter it was because of the time it takes to go through and edit around 1,000 pictures per ceremony.
*Names have been changed
Kulsuma Aktergetty images
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