Wedding photography question - Botch ups!

karmagarda

karmagarda

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I have a question I'm curious about and would love both the pro togs (and otherwise) to fill me in on your "botch up" stories. Everyone has to have an "I ****ed up story" (expecting the swear filter to catch that one)... and I'm wondering what you as wedding photographers messed up in the early days of your career! Because I'm not a wedding photographer, I don't have a story myself, but just to show I'm game I'll tell an equivalent story:

I'm a software developer, and a part of my job usually entails dealing with customers, or at least speaking with IT support people who do. In my first job one of the IT Support guys called me in for help on a problem. He had the customer one hold and he pointed me to a screen that had incorrect figures on it. The particular software he was pointing as was one I'd written a few months previous. Anyway, I looked at the form and realised the customer had opened it in the morning with all the morning figures, then entered in the evenings figures and overwrote the days sales. Effectively, he'd found a fairly significant bug, but as starting out I saw this as "User error". So I said to the IT support guy "come on, are these guys that stupid that they don't know how to use the system properly! That's just plain thick" and at just about that point the support guy realised he hadn't actually put them on hold... they heard everything, but luckily it was one of the more understanding customers! Needless to say, I've grown up a lot since then, this is going back about 10 years ago now :eek:. I can tell the difference between a bug and user error, and I have also learnt how not to so blatently insult people! :lol:

So, I'm interested in your wedding botch ups. What's the worst thing you've done (no matter how timid) and how did you "fix" it or make good with the client again? Or maybe you couldn't make good with the client so what happened there after!

If anyone ouside of wedding photography has any hilarious mess ups I'd love to hear them too.

:thumbs:
 
I was taking shots at a wedding locally and a guy come up to me and asked how I was doing. I told him it was going well just a pity the bride wasnt a little better looking. "I know what you mean son"! My other daughter is a much better looker but thats his problem now (pointing at he groom).

It turned out to be the brides father. I had been dealing with the step-father.
He never battered an eylid and walked away as happy as could be......Learnt to keep it shut now :schtum:
 
Chiggs said:
I was taking shots at a wedding locally and a guy come up to me and asked how I was doing. I told him it was going well just a pity the bride wasnt a little better looking. "I know what you mean son"! My other daughter is a much better looker but thats his problem now (pointing at he groom).

It turned out to be the brides father. I had been dealing with the step-father.
He never battered an eylid and walked away as happy as could be......Learnt to keep it shut now :schtum:
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Thats quality :lol: :clap: :clap:
 
When working in a shop about 12 years ago I needed to take some customer details down before moving onto taking payment. In an english accent he said it would be easier to spell it and continued with something along the lines of....

K...A...L...S...K...I...V...O...K...I...K... At this point I was thinking "is this a wind up" but i stuck with it. 6 letters later with an X thrown in for good measure, I said whilst laughing "very funny sir, now can I take your real name".

He looked quite upset and proceeded to show me his credit card showing me that he was in fact giving me his real name. I apologised and he was ok, but the rest of the transaction was carried out very quietly.
 
I was at a wedding quite a few years ago. I was stood near the front of the church and the vicar was doing his thing with all the " Do you take xxxx to be your loving wife" then all of a sudden I found myself saying "I do".

I'm not sure which was the biggest blunder, being the groom or saying I do. The blunder has been sorted now though, the divorce went through a few years ago.
 
Chiggs said:
I was taking shots at a wedding locally and a guy come up to me and asked how I was doing. I told him it was going well just a pity the bride wasnt a little better looking. "I know what you mean son"! My other daughter is a much better looker but thats his problem now (pointing at he groom).

It turned out to be the brides father. I had been dealing with the step-father.
He never battered an eylid and walked away as happy as could be......Learnt to keep it shut now :schtum:
Click to expand...

:lol::lol::lol: Wicked! :clap:

Pads said:
When working in a shop about 12 years ago I needed to take some customer details down before moving onto taking payment. In an english accent he said it would be easier to spell it and continued with something along the lines of....

K...A...L...S...K...I...V...O...K...I...K... At this point I was thinking "is this a wind up" but i stuck with it. 6 letters later with an X thrown in for good measure, I said whilst laughing "very funny sir, now can I take your real name".

He looked quite upset and proceeded to show me his credit card showing me that he was in fact giving me his real name. I apologised and he was ok, but the rest of the transaction was carried out very quietly.
Click to expand...

:lol: Reminds me of a commentry during a swimming line up once... let me google it see, I'll link if I find it.

Keep em comin folks! Surely some more corkers out there!

:thumbs:
 
-Rob- said:
I was at a wedding quite a few years ago. I was stood near the front of the church and the vicar was doing his thing with all the " Do you take xxxx to be your loving wife" then all of a sudden I would myself saying "I do".

I'm not sure which was the biggest blunder, being the groom or saying I do. The blunder has been sorted now though, the divorce went through a few years ago.
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That's classic mate! :clap: Still lauging :lol:
 
The worst mistake i have ever made was when I used a Hassleblad SW/C at a wedding. It comes with a small viewfinder that you can frame shots with quite accurately. I pre-focused the distance on the lens with the same distance with my 500C/M which was ok for the first several shots but somehow I knocked the focus ring with my Metz 45CL :bonk: and some shots were far to soft.

It wasn't a total disaster but a pretty close call
 
Hope so, they have been v good so far lol, shame I haven't any to share lol
 
One last year where I had to take the father of the bride outside the church and give him a talking to along the lines of "it's not acceptable to give the mother of the bride a slap in church or any other time for that matter!"

Parents are divorced and mother was supposed to escort daughter into church and hand her over to dad at the top of the aisle for her to walk her those last few steps.....except mother dragged the poor girl there herself much to fathers annoyance.

I could see his point but that's not the place or the way to settle it.

That and a groom being so shy that the bride got up and said "I suppose I'll have to do the speech for him, just like everything else", that was before he put his foot through her veil.

Tis fun being a wedding tog and when people say it's not so much to do with the photography.............
 
Oh man! Classics people! Keep em comin! Love the full metal jack quote going picked up by the mike :lol:
 
I went to help a friend with a wedding in S. Wales last year 'cos it was his first 'proper' commission...

I walked into the church before the ceremony to have a chat with the vicar and found a woman dressed in a pair of joggers and a t shirt sat on one of the pews nattering with the cleaner who'd been giving the place a final going over.

I strolled up to her and said; "hello love, have you seen the vicar about anywhere?"

With a steely gaze she looked at me and said, "yeah, you're looking at her"... I just smiled at her and said "Ahhh... you're in disguise then" whilst fervently hoping the ground would open up and swallow me whole!

***

The worst I ever had from a wedding client came just after the ceremony...

The groom looked at my assistant (who's my girlfriend) and mentioned in front of his new bride that she had "a really cute arse" and was she single! I quietly pointed out that, yes she does have a nice arse but that she was my girlfriend and that he shouldn't even be looking at other women on his wedding day! :bonk:

I thought I was going to get a wedding and a funeral in the same day! :D

There's nowt as queer as folk eh? ;)
 
I had the entire grooms party - groom, best man and ushers arrive at a wedding last year having got in a fight the night before. Every one of them had atleast one black eye. Made for some joy in PP

Hugh
 
The bride and groom at a wedding I did once were going to leave the ceremony in the bride's father's vintage MG. Only when the time came, nobody knew where the keys were and nobody had any signal on their phones to ring around and see if anyone had taken them. I ended up taking them to the hotel myself!
 
I had a really fun wedding with a bride who was wearing an unusual dress, the top of the dress was black and bottom cream so getting the right exposure was a nightmare.

However the problem came when I persuaded her and the bridesmaids to come and sit in a wild flower meadow next to the reception venue. The pictures looked great but they all got bitten to pieces by insects and spent the rest of the reception scratching themselves like gibbons.
 
Spiritflier said:
I went to help a friend with a wedding in S. Wales last year 'cos it was his first 'proper' commission...

I walked into the church before the ceremony to have a chat with the vicar and found a woman dressed in a pair of joggers and a t shirt sat on one of the pews nattering with the cleaner who'd been giving the place a final going over.

I strolled up to her and said; "hello love, have you seen the vicar about anywhere?"

With a steely gaze she looked at me and said, "yeah, you're looking at her"... I just smiled at her and said "Ahhh... you're in disguise then" whilst fervently hoping the ground would open up and swallow me whole!

***

The worst I ever had from a wedding client came just after the ceremony...

The groom looked at my assistant (who's my girlfriend) and mentioned in front of his new bride that she had "a really cute arse" and was she single! I quietly pointed out that, yes she does have a nice arse but that she was my girlfriend and that he shouldn't even be looking at other women on his wedding day! :bonk:

I thought I was going to get a wedding and a funeral in the same day! :D

There's nowt as queer as folk eh? ;)
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I'm thinking not so bad on the vicar front. Easy mistake. Smack in the mouth for the groom though :lol:

boyfalldown said:
I had the entire grooms party - groom, best man and ushers arrive at a wedding last year having got in a fight the night before. Every one of them had atleast one black eye. Made for some joy in PP

Hugh
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:eek: interesting photos then! :lol: sould have gave them the photos unprocessed :lol:

Lazlo Woodbine said:
The bride and groom at a wedding I did once were going to leave the ceremony in the bride's father's vintage MG. Only when the time came, nobody knew where the keys were and nobody had any signal on their phones to ring around and see if anyone had taken them. I ended up taking them to the hotel myself!
Click to expand...

Wow, must have been funny carrying half that bridal party to the reception :lol:

kickstart said:
I had a really fun wedding with a bride who was wearing an unusual dress, the top of the dress was black and bottom cream so getting the right exposure was a nightmare.

However the problem came when I persuaded her and the bridesmaids to come and sit in a wild flower meadow next to the reception venue. The pictures looked great but they all got bitten to pieces by insects and spent the rest of the reception scratching themselves like gibbons.
Click to expand...

:lol: nice one! did you get the blame for the scratchies? :lol:
 
Just wanted to say these have all made me smile. I guess you learn from the mistakes.

Hugh. Did you have to PP ever single black eye? I hope they compensated you with some champagne or something equally as tasty for your hard work!
 
Not at a wedding, but wedding-related...

Many many moons ago I was sat at a coffee shop in Abingdon when I was approached by a couple of middle-aged women who asked me if I knew ***** - a local photographer.
Why yes I did, as a matter of fact - I'd subbed for him on a number of occasions at weddings in the area.

"He ruined my daughter's wedding - the photographs were terrible!" said one, fixing me with a gimlet eye...

We sent a few minutes chatting about how terrible some photographers were - complete charlatans etc...should have booked me, my rates are very reasonable etc...

...to this day I have no idea if her daughter's wedding was one of the ones I'd covered for my mate...
 
Not about MY c**k ups but I have covered a few weddings where you wondered why they bothered or why such a gorgeous girl was marrying such a pratt - or even talking to him! - I covered one wedding where the best man and groom had been involved in a punch up the night before and both turned up with black eyes and bruises - the wedding where the mother of the (very pregnant) bride screamed at the GROOM during the ceremony "I hope you're bloody happy now" then stormed off - and 2 weddings where both sides of the family hated each other - all of which required very creative photographing!

Oh and one wedding when I asked a man if he wanted to be photographed with his daughter - who turned out to be his wife - She was REALLY happy - he not so much!
 
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