This doesn't happen often, but it may happen in your lifetime and career of wedding photography and can be completely honest. I have been shooting for plus years, almost 20 years of wedding photography. And this has really only happened to me one time in that entire span of wedding photography. And it's not fun, but it will happen. So it's good to think about how you can deal with it. And that is the unhappy client. Now, whether they're unhappy with their photos, they're unhappy with how you were at the wedding. They're unhappy with external things that had nothing to do with you. We don't know. But the best way to deal with it is to do the best you can and stay as positive as possible and do whatever you can to help that person get there, help that person get happy and be ok with what went down with their photos at the end of the day, the photos are what they are, you have taken what you have taken and if they are unhappy with what you have taken, that's kind of just the way it is. B...

ut what you can do to mitigate that is, you can offer extra photos, you can offer the raw photos for them to take to someone else to edit. You can offer to edit them differently. There are a lot of different things that you can offer that are within your means. You just have to find the balance of what you feel you can offer to them to help get them to a happy place. I've always believed that doing whatever you can to get them, there is worth it. And there's a lot of photographers that believe, oh, I would never give them all the raw photos or I would never edit it differently from my own style. But in the grand scheme of things, one client, one client of all the clients you ever had one couple, if one couple is unhappy and it's just a little thing that you can do to help them be happier with the day that was really important to them with their photography. I think it's worth doing. I'm gonna tell you a story that just recently happened to me. Actually, within the last few years, I shot a wedding and one of the partners in the couple were unhappy with most of the photos. And I wasn't sure if it was the photos themselves or it was just the photos that this person was in and it turned out it was mostly the photos that this person was in. They were unhappy with the way they looked they thought that I could have shot them differently and there's also some missing photos of them and a certain family member that I didn't get enough of. Now, that is my fault. I think there is definitely some blame to be said on me not asking who they wanted photos with mostly. And that's just a lapse on my part. And it's also just, you know, what happens. I missed that part of it and they really wanted specific photos with that person. There's nothing really I can do about that at this point, right? Things have happened. The photos are the way the photos are now the person themselves. We sat down afterwards and it was very emotional. I came with the most positive attitude. There is no blame. I didn't accept the fact that I had failed because there really was no failure in it. It was just a matter of opinion at a certain point. Wedding photography is art and at a certain point, the way they look, the way that people are in frame, it is all sort of artistic, artistically objective. It's in the eye of the beholder. But I came with a positive attitude to this meeting. I actually listened to them speak about how they felt about it. I listened to them, I heard them and I ended up offering all the photos in raw format to them if they provided a hard drive and that seemed to make them feel so much better. So they got to sift through. I took thousands of photos. I only delivered 300 but now they have all the thousands, all the mess ups, all the vulnerable out of focus shots, all the under and over exposed. I basically opened myself up to being vulnerable for them so that they could feel better about finding what they liked. I also told them, hey, if you want to take these and have someone else edit them by all means, please do that. Maybe don't put my name on it necessarily if it's like a crazy edit, but I trust you that you wouldn't do that. And so meeting them halfway and making them feel better about the whole situation, made me feel better about it. And I was very worried and very upset because that's never happened to me before. It all turned out great. And they are still actually posting photos that I took for their wedding anniversary and they seem very happy and they've actually recommended me a couple of times. So it's just how you approach it, positivity, not playing the blame game, but seeing how you can move on from there, how you can help them get to a better place and be happy with the photography.

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Philip Ebiner

Professional video & course creator, photographer & teacher to 1mil+ students; 10+ years experience with 1000+ videos.

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Will Carnahan

11+ years experience as a cinematographer, camera operator, and photographer. Working with Disney, Nike, ESPN, PredPol and many others.

2,000+ classes ranging from fundamentals to advanced techniques.

How to deal with unhappy or difficult clients

How to deal with unhappy or difficult clients

Lesson Info

67. How to deal with unhappy or difficult clients

Lessons

What this course is about and how to succeed

Why you should become a wedding photographer

Business Section Intro

Building your kit

Where You Should Invest Your Earnings

Will's Wedding Photography Kit

Choosing Your Business name

Action Item - Choose Your Name

How to build your Wedding photography package

Setting Your Wedding Photography Prices

How to Get Your First Clients

Talking with Clients

The Importance of Contracts

The Wedding business workflow

Good Accounting Practices

The philosophy of a well run business

Wedding Day Overview - Schedule of Common Events

Taking care of Business before the shooting day

Tips for working with a wedding coordinator

Action item - List out the key moments - Try to memorize

Know what you will be photographing ahead of time

Conclusion to section/ recap

Introduction - The meat of the course

Equipment checklist/ cleaning lenses and cameras

Do you need an Assistant/ 2nd shooter?

Being a second shooter

What to wear as a photographer

How to shoot: Getting Ready/ Hanging out

How to Shoot: Dress/ Rings/ Bride details

How to Shoot - Groom Portraits & Posing

How to shoot: Groomsman

How to shoot: Bride Portraits & Posing Interior

How to shoot: Bride Portraits & Posing Exterior

How to shoot Bridesmaids

How to shoot: First Look

How to Shoot: Posed Couples Portraits

How to shoot: Walking down the Aisle

How to shoot: Ceremony Coverage and vows / ring exchange

How to shoot: First kiss and walking out

How to shoot: Formal family and group Photos

Action Item: Save your fav pose

Action Item: Find inspiration

How to shoot: Reception intro and Grand entrance

How to shoot: Reception Details

How to shoot: Reception Speeches and toasts

How to shoot: Reception First Dance

How to shoot: Reception Bouquet and Garter toss

How to shoot: Reception Dancing and Partying

Recap of “How to shoot”

Introduction to Editing Section

Photo applications and Profesional Apps

Organize, rate, and cull

Editing detail shots

Editing bride getting ready

Editing Demo: Editing Outdoor Ceremony

Editing single portraits

Editing Demo: Black and White editing

Editing Demo: Stylized Editing/ Finding your editing Style

Advice on how to edit hundreds of photos efficiently

Exporting your photos for client/ portfolio/ print

Delivering Digital images to your client

Intro to Succeeding in Wedding Photography

Being happy as a wedding photographer

Making it as a business and sticking with it

Getting Testimonials

Using Social Media and networking to expand business