So you've been looking and looking for a wedding photographer who is the perfect fit for you. You've seen their portfolio, love their work and when you met with them they could not have seemed nicer! This is the person you want to have around you for hours on the biggest day of your life documenting these important moments. The only problem is, the photographer you thought you were hiring might not be the person you actually get unless you document specifically who your photographer will be prior to the day in writing.
This is the shell game a lot of wedding photography studios play with their clients. Many use "associate photographers" so they can double/triple/quadruple book a Saturday in the summer. They will then contract out your wedding to a photographer that is almost always inferior. Why are they inferior? Because if they had the portfolio to book clients on their own, they wouldn't be working under another photographer who is taking a slice of their action off the top.
These associate photographers usually have minimal photo experience, minimal training and inferior equipment. You will probably not have much of a rapport with them because you've never seen their work or met them. The reviews you read online probably have nothing to do with them. You might as well have put a bunch of names in a hat and had chosen a photographer that way. You didn't do that because you actually care what your wedding photography looks like.
This amounts to nothing more than an often-legal bait-and-switch technique that allows photographers to mislead their clients and double dip on their Saturday bookings. Don't allow them to get away with it!
In my contract—and in the contract of every ethical wedding photographer—it should spell out who will be the actual photographer who will show up and shoot your wedding. My contract explicitly states I shoot all the weddings I book. It also states that the only time I would ever have a replacement photographer shoot a wedding for me is if it was an emergency that I would able to document—such as a death in the family, a broken leg, a severe illness or I am bleeding out of my eyes from contracting Ebola.
It's important to note that in 10 years of shooting weddings and with more than 350 weddings shot, I have never had to use a replacement photographer. I even shot a wedding one time with walking pneumonia. That is how seriously I take making good on my promise to you.
In the event of a catastrophic emergency that would prevent me from making it to your wedding, I also have a network of friends who are professional photojournalists that I would call on to cover for me. All these photographers have similar backgrounds, skill levels, experience and training. In that kind of scenario, I would simply be transferring any money I received from the client to the emergency photographer and would not be profiting from it personally. If no photographer could be found as a replacement, I would obviously give a full refund to the client. Again, we are talking about extreme situations here. I would never for a second consider double booking a date for the purpose of subcontracting a wedding out to a third party photographer. My reputation means too much to me.
Do you know somebody who hired a vendor and didn't get the person they thought they were getting at a wedding? Feel free to share your comments below.