I'm marrying my partner in 3 weeks, we booked our wedding photographer in August 2020, he had photographed my brothers wedding a couple of years previously so we had met him and seen his work. We paid him upfront the full amount shortly after booking. He is not a full time photographer, he has a day job and seemly does photography gigs at the weekends.
Fast forward to earlier this year, we had sent him some messages via Facebook Messenger, he'd read them but did not respond. Eventually he did respond after about 5 weeks but did not address the content of the messages. In May we sent another message asking about going over details of the day, again he read it but did not respond, then a few weeks later we noticed a bad review on his FB page essentially saying the same issues that we were having and that he started to get nasty in messages when pushed for details etc. They said he showed up on the day but was rude and unprofessional and turned out poor quality pictures. We sent him another message asking him about the review, he again didn't respond.
By this time his wedding website had gone offline, his business social media pages also hadn't been up dated since early 2021
We took the decision to find another photographer with the wedding being less than 3 months away and the worry that this guy wasn't going to show up (he lives nearly 3 hours away)
Eventually he responded to our messages after nearly 5 weeks again stating he'd had a turbulent few weeks.
We sent him a letter stating our desire to cancel, stating the reasons, he didn't respond to it.
We sent another one 5 weeks later giving him 14 days to respond, which he did on the 13th day essentially quoting his contract and that we would get nothing back.
Contract states if we cancel less than 3 months till the date we would be liable for 100% of the monies, as we'd paid in full then we'd get nothing back. We had offered costs/expenses of £200 and the remainder returned to us in the 2 letters we sent.
Now we put our hands up, we decided to exit the contract even though we were forced to do so by his behaviour but what are our chances of getting anything back?
One thing to note, part of the package we purchased was an initial consultation. We had a Facetime call with him discussing us and our day but we had this before we signed any contract with him. Once we signed the contract we had no kind of consultation and one of the messages we sent that was not answered was regarding talking about photo poses etc. Could we use this to show he has broken the contract by not supplying this?
Many thanks
Fast forward to earlier this year, we had sent him some messages via Facebook Messenger, he'd read them but did not respond. Eventually he did respond after about 5 weeks but did not address the content of the messages. In May we sent another message asking about going over details of the day, again he read it but did not respond, then a few weeks later we noticed a bad review on his FB page essentially saying the same issues that we were having and that he started to get nasty in messages when pushed for details etc. They said he showed up on the day but was rude and unprofessional and turned out poor quality pictures. We sent him another message asking him about the review, he again didn't respond.
By this time his wedding website had gone offline, his business social media pages also hadn't been up dated since early 2021
We took the decision to find another photographer with the wedding being less than 3 months away and the worry that this guy wasn't going to show up (he lives nearly 3 hours away)
Eventually he responded to our messages after nearly 5 weeks again stating he'd had a turbulent few weeks.
We sent him a letter stating our desire to cancel, stating the reasons, he didn't respond to it.
We sent another one 5 weeks later giving him 14 days to respond, which he did on the 13th day essentially quoting his contract and that we would get nothing back.
Contract states if we cancel less than 3 months till the date we would be liable for 100% of the monies, as we'd paid in full then we'd get nothing back. We had offered costs/expenses of £200 and the remainder returned to us in the 2 letters we sent.
Now we put our hands up, we decided to exit the contract even though we were forced to do so by his behaviour but what are our chances of getting anything back?
One thing to note, part of the package we purchased was an initial consultation. We had a Facetime call with him discussing us and our day but we had this before we signed any contract with him. Once we signed the contract we had no kind of consultation and one of the messages we sent that was not answered was regarding talking about photo poses etc. Could we use this to show he has broken the contract by not supplying this?
Many thanks
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