lissener, any professional wedding photographer wouldn’t have to be a mind-reader to know that they are going to want an unobstructed photo of the face of the mother of the bride.
Of course, a professional wedding photographer wouldn’t be sitting at a table as though she were a guest, either.
lissener, any wedding photographer, ANY of them, would know to take a few decent shots of each key relative. Period! THAT’S WHAT YOU DO! It’s a WEDDING!
It’s like going to Burger King - sure, you can have it your way, but they know to put the damn patty on the damn bun!
My Dad has shot weddings for people - HE knows it.
My FIL has done weddings professionally - HE knows it.
The only thing you can blame Indygrrl for is if she never said “Hey - when’re we going to do our posed group shots?” and is now wondering why those pictures were never taken.
Fuck off. I don’t consider pictures of my family to be “additional stuff,” nor did I expect her to read my mind. She dropped the ball here, not me.
I was completely reasonable in my expectations of this photographer. And obviously, I’m not making a huge deal out of it now even though I am very disappointed. It’s insane that a few people in this thread want to make me out to be some psycho bride when I was anything but that. And because I didn’t act like a control freak about everything I didn’t get the photos I wanted. It’s too bad that in order to get the basic services you have to hold the hand of all the people you hire. Unfortunately I didn’t know I needed to do that.
Beautiful couple. Average shots. There are two things that made them nice as photos and neither have a damned thing to do with the woman who shot them.
It was an overcast moment when they were both taken. Whether or not the whole day was lightly overcast I’ve no idea, but the lack of harsh contrast and beautiful color saturation says overcast at the moment of exposure.
There is a lot of greenery in the shots, and due to #1, it looks splendid.
You two look very much in love !!! 
You perhaps forgot the most important thing, which is moment and expression. From the pictures, it looks like Indygrrl and the photographer had some sort of rapport going, because the photos looked relaxed and fun. I especially like the shot against the wooden gate, although I would have cropped it a lot differently. They’re not going to win a WPPI print competition, but they are solid portraits. And the photographer has to be aware of background, lighting, pose, etc… So, the photos do have a “damned thing to do with the woman who shot them.”
But, Indy is right. Pictures of family members is not something that should be considered “mind reading” by the photographer.
Not taking a picture of the Bride’s Mother is moronic. Missing out aunts and uncles is understandable though. The friend should get to see the photos, they might also have wanted to get their money’s worth from the photographer.
Were their relatives with cameras who took their own pictures? You may well be able to round out your wedding photos with some of theirs.
I take pictures of things. I generally don’t take pictures of people over the age of four, and never for a fee. Trees, rocks, rivers, snow, that sort of thing. (And the occasional light house, see my sig.)
I was invited to a wedding of a very good friend. She asked me to bring my camera, and take pictures. “Lots of pictures. We’ll pay for them.”
So, I went, and I took about 175 pictures before, and during the ceremony, and ten or so at the reception (All at their home) Then I went upstairs to their office, downloaded the entire card into a directory on the desktop called “Wedding Photos” and printed a dozen on their own printer, with my photo paper. I took them downstairs, and gave them to the bride. “That’s $1.80”
But, I am not a professional, and cannot be held to the standards of the industry.
Tris
My God, it’s full of smilies…
What am I missing? 
Click on each smilie, and you get a picture of a lighthouse.
Very cool…am I correct that they are mostly east coast lighthouses? And that maybe the first one is the exception…it looks like Little Sable on Lake Michigan? (We love lighthouses, too, and my husband also takes photos of them as a hobby.)
The photographer obviously has a “style.” Put yourself in her place: you’re hired, presumably, because someone likes your style. Then, on top of that, you’re given NO instructions, and no specific wish list, or anything like that. Wouldn’t you assume that they just wanted you to go with the “style” they hired you for? If they wanted specific shots, they’d ask for them.
If, on the other hand, it’s the photographer’s responsibility to interrogate instructions out of the people who hired her–which I don’t agree with, but let’s say it is, for the sake of discussion–then you, Indygrrl, should’ve gone, “Huh, she’s not asking me for specifics. I better see what’s up.” The fact that you kept your mouth shut and said nothing to the photographer was, of course, interpreted by her as absolute confirmation that you just wanted her to go with her “style,” and that whatever she did would be all right with you.
All my sympathy, of course; I’m not ragging on you. I’m just saying, if you had specifics in mind, and you expected the photographer to seek you out and extract those specifics from you, then when she didn’t, you should have spoken to her. Before it was too late. Which it is.
And I’m sure your friend expected you to take control and get whatever you needed out of the gift she was giving you, so of all THREE of you, the person LEAST at fault is your friend. So don’t ever say anything to her. Ever. She’d be right to be offended. YOU chose to keep your mouth shut; your friend deserves nothing but gratitude.
Absolutely. I agree one hundred per cent. Your expectations were entirely reasonable. Unfortunately, different people have different expectations, and since you chose not to communicate those expectations, the photographer had no idea which set of perfectly reasonable expectations she was expected to meet. I have zero criticism of your expectations; only of your choice not to communicate them.
What a crock. You should not have to ask the wedding photographer to take pictures of your own mother. Besides, the photographer sat on her ass jabbering too, which is totally unprofessional. If she had worked the whole time, and still not gotten the best shots, that would be one thing. But she didn’t even do that.
Yes you are. Don’t rag on someone, and then say “I’m not ragging on you” like that’s going to make her forget that you just spent two paragraphs ragging on her.
Well, I’m gonna pull back a bit. Instead of laying the blame 100/0, I’ll call it 80/20. If she was an experience wedding photographer, she should have sought out the bride and asked if there were any specifics. Still, I have some sympathy for the photog: I might have taken the fact that the bride made no attempt to communicate with me as confirmation that I was just to document the event in the style I was hired for. Still, professionally, she should have confirmed that. I still have to repeat that, of that 80/20 split, the gifting friend played no part at all. You must not complain to your friend, Indygrrl. If she asks, be honest, I guess, but don’t take your customer service issues to her. AGain, she deserves nothing but gratitude.
Two things. Well, three.
I have seen plenty of Indygrrl around here and read enough of her posts to know she is no Bridezilla, as far from it as possible. Do some people just read “complaint about wedding” and hear “bridezilla”? It is possible to have legitimate complaints about your wedding without being that.
The good pictures are lovely and you look very much in love.
And you look beautiful, Indy. Congrats.
My point is that I’m not simply riding Indygrrl out of some punitive impulse or whatever. I’m trying to clearly address the situation. The fact that that address includes some criticism of her choices is not meant to be punitive–ragging–but honest–not ragging.
FWIW, I dont’ see her as a “bridezilla” either. Not at all. I just think she’s, now, after the fact, not seeing where it was her own choices that contributed to this result. In fact, I think I’m suggesting that if she HAD been more of a bridezillla–if she’d micromanaged the photog a little–she’d be happier now.
It’s sad that it was probably her easygoing trust in a presumed professional that brought about this pass.
The photographs you have are beautiful, Indygrrl. And I’m sure your reasons for not micromanaging is that you, like I, hate micromanagers. I honestly have nothing but sympathy for you. I’m just trying to stress the importance of communication in such a situation. I’m trying to point out the imbalance of communication to assumption that took place, and where that lead.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but surely you’d agree that, now, you wish you’d communicated more clearly? Surely?
Sorry, lissener, i completely disagree.
In my life before and during college, i worked in a variety of hotels and restaurants, and for a catering company, on three continents. In that time, the number of weddings i worked at probably numbered somewhere around 200. I not only got to observe dozens of professional wedding photographers at work, but being something of a camera buff and (keen-but-not-very-talented) amateur photographer myself, i also made a point of chatting with many of them when they took a break from their duties.
While you are correct that many photographers have their own “style” or method, there are still some things that (should) go without saying. And they include many of the things that were missed in the OP’s case. Some things just need to get done.
Beyond that, just about every wedding photographer i’ve ever spoken to (including a friend of mine who shot a wedding that i attended just last Saturday) says that one of the fundamental requirements of the job is to take particular care to meet with the people whose wedding it is and make sure that you’re on the same page about what their requirements are. This is the photographer’s job, part of his or her professional duty; it’s not enough to simply say, “Hey, no-one chased me up and laid out exactly what they wanted, so i’ll just mosey around and shoot what takes my fancy.”
Now, on preview, i see you’ve moderated your argument a bit, but i still think that the photographer was more to blame here.
I obviously agree to a point; that’s where the 20% comes from. I can only assume that the presence of a third party–the gifter–might have confused things even more.
Look, I’m sorry if I’ve made this thread about me and my opinions; I’ll back out now. And as I said, I have nothing but sympathy for Indygrrl, whom I’ve always liked on these boards. Especially since the greatest “blame” lies in her being too nice. It’s terribly insensitive of me, I know, to “use” Indygrrl’s situation as an abstract lesson in “communicate, don’t assume,” so I apologize for that insensitivity.
But to anyone who might be able to learn something at Indygrrl’s tragic expense: Please, communicate, don’t assume. Especially when, as in this case, there’s no way to go back and do it over again.
Indygrrl, I hope the other guests are able to rustle up some great alternate shots. If not, I know that over time the shots you have and treasure will come to eclipse the shots you wish you had.
lissener, let me ask you a question. If I go to get my hair cut, and the barber only cuts the left side of my hair, and doesn’t touch the right side, and then walks away, am I at fault for not communicating that I want both sides of my hair cut, and just *assuming *that it’s understood? That’s the same thing here. If Indygrrl was upset that the photog didn’t get a picture of when Uncle Artie was twirling cousin Janie around the dance floor, that would be one thing. But assuming a photographer will take a picture of your mother without a camera in front of her face is the same as assuming a barber will cut both sides of your hair without being asked. And while the few pictures I’ve seen of the bride and groom seem well done, why in the world would the photographer take a picture of someone with a disposable camera to their face? How is that a cherished memory?