Wedding Photographer Follows Wrong Groom into Hotel Room, Takes Photos of Total Strangers
Wedding photography is a complicated business and depending on the job, things can get messy — especially if there’s more than one wedding party present at the location.
I discovered this once while shooting a wedding at a city clerk’s office. Capturing images of guests waiting outside the venue, I soon realized there were two wedding parties gathered at the same time, and I had taken photos of the wrong one. But that was nothing compared to what happened to another wedding photographer.
According to a post on Reddit, one wedding photographer on the way to capture pictures of a groom’s party getting ready in their hotel ran into a group of groomsmen in the elevator and, naturally, presumed they had found their subjects.
“My older sister hired a photographer that she had worked with before, but the photographer brought a partner to help out, whom my sister had not met,” the Reddit poster explains in the Wedding Shaming forum. “They got married in the ballroom of a hotel and so everyone got ready within the confines of the hotel as well.”
The sister of the bride explains that the primary photographer was with her and the rest of the bridal party, snapping pictures of them getting ready and then eventually a few first-look photos.
“At some point, the groom said something to the photographer about nobody showing up to take pictures of the groom’s party getting ready,” the bride’s sister says. But it turned out the photographer’s assistant had been taking photos of groomsmen getting ready, just the wrong group.
“The problem was there was a second wedding party getting ready in the hotel at the same time that none of us knew about, which just so happened to be the people the photographer ran into,” she explains. “So, an entirely separate wedding party got photographed by mistake. Why nobody in the party questioned it or why the photographer didn’t verify, nobody knows.”
The unfortunate episode has a happy ending. Not only did the photographer give the bride and groom a discount but they tracked down the random groomsmen that the second photographer took pictures of and gave the photos to them as a wedding gift.
“I don’t think she ever got an explanation as to why nobody in the other groom’s party didn’t question the random photographer in their room though,” the bride’s sister adds.
My old photography teacher used to tell me to “never assume”, and that is sage advice during a hectic wedding shoot when it’s always worth double-checking the details. PetaPixel’s complete wedding photography guide is full of great tips for those interested in wedding photography.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
