Wedding Photographer Uncontactable

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Limehouse

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Peter
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Hi All
A neighbour of mine sent me this (below) regarding a friend of his who can not trace the photographer that photographed their wedding.I assume money was handed over but don't know full details yet.
In case anyone within the wedding industry might know of them but im guessing this might be a lost cause.

'I am looking for some help / information really. We got married in September at Horsham registry office. We booked a photographer Millie / Amanda Withey - her company is Millie and Max Photopgraphy - and paid the full balance for the day upfront. She seemed legit, came to our house before hand, and turned up on the day and seemed very nice and approachable.
Since the wedding, however, we have heard nothing from her - despite repeated calls / texts / emails. I even contacted her place of work (where she apparently left more than a month ago ) and visited her business address in Warnham, where again she was last seen a week or so ago, clearing out, along with her registered directorship address which she hasn't lived in for a couple of years...
Does anyone have any information or contact details this photographer - Millie / Amanda Withey? Or any idea how I would go about finding her? We just really want our photos nothing else as we had a small wedding and we don't actually good ones of us!
 
Can't help with contact info but I put the name of the compant into a Companies House search and came up with a company called Millie and Max Ltd whose business is Photographic activities and with a registered office address in Warnham, Hoesham.

The company status is "Active - Active proposal to strike off"

There is a lot more info at Companies House on this company, which appears to be the one your neighbour was involved with, including that the striking off action was suspended in December 2021 and another address.

Dave
 
You'd think people would have the decency to at least cough up unedited raws or jpegs. That would at least be something.

Simon, I hope your neighbours friend can at least get some pictures of the day even if they are unedited and unsorted. That'd be something to rescue from this.

A relative shot our wedding and although things went ok on the day after that it was a nightmare and it took months just to get the unedited raws off her but at least I could sift through them and get some useable shots and make up an album.

Best wishes to your neighbours friend Simon, I hope that they can some sort of a result from this.
 
It seems from the reviews that they had a well respected business but all the recent (last 12 months) ones are damning and in the same vein as your neighbours experience.

Such a poor behaviour once or twice is maybe a bump in the road but to have multiple ones sounds like a deliberate act.

Maybe no succour for your neighbour but I wonder if this needs a legal approach i.e. reporting a fraud to the police???
 
Thanks for responses guys. I think they've done all the company checks etc and found that they appear to be legit. I said id post something in the slim hope that someone might know them , small world sometimes.I took a look at the website, its obviously a generic template with images taken by someone who knows that the lens should face the subject but little more than that..
Thanks again

Peter
 
Re: companies House

I don't think I have ever seen so many notifications of striking off....... possibly due to no accounts filings???

As for the change to a new business contact address.......looks quite spurious "First and Second Floor........." Is there perhaps a firm at that address or not?

The listed house address was bought in January 2018.....is that the address that was being cleared out?
 
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Get someone to ring up asking to book a wedding, while they may not answer the phone or ring back someone trying to get hold of them they may be greedy enough to try for a deposit/new booking. Get them to call around and then you can find out whats happened to the pics.
 

swanseamale47​

that is a good call actually and one worth pursuing.

In the mean time I would start a Smalls Claims application and do it on Multiple defendants, all directors, The Co, and any name you have from the the said Co.
I suspect they will not turn up, once you get he ruling it is Bailiffs time or a High Court Writ which is not that much money considering.
 
That's awful to hear. If they are behind in their editing, they should at least acknowledge it and apologise. People just want to know it's at hand most of the time.
 
Limehouse said:
Hi All
A neighbour of mine sent me this (below) regarding a friend of his who can not trace the photographer that photographed their wedding.I assume money was handed over but don't know full details yet.
In case anyone within the wedding industry might know of them but im guessing this might be a lost cause.

'I am looking for some help / information really. We got married in September at Horsham registry office. We booked a photographer Millie / Amanda Withey - her company is Millie and Max Photopgraphy - and paid the full balance for the day upfront. She seemed legit, came to our house before hand, and turned up on the day and seemed very nice and approachable.
Since the wedding, however, we have heard nothing from her - despite repeated calls / texts / emails. I even contacted her place of work (where she apparently left more than a month ago ) and visited her business address in Warnham, where again she was last seen a week or so ago, clearing out, along with her registered directorship address which she hasn't lived in for a couple of years...
Does anyone have any information or contact details this photographer - Millie / Amanda Withey? Or any idea how I would go about finding her? We just really want our photos nothing else as we had a small wedding and we don't actually good ones of us!
Click to expand...


Seen a lot of very similar stories this year more than any other year.

Just as one example a videographer / photographer who we have photographed a few weddings with has done a disappearing act leaving about 70-80 couples with no video footage or images.(depending on what they booked) They also after taking payment in full, didn't turn up to quite a few weddings as well. Idiots still continued to book them for some time after even after they had seen all the stuff about them being taken to small claims etc. on social media. They have since rebranded with a very similar business name and are continuing to take bookings for weddings that no one will turn up for.

It is pretty likely that local photographers and videographers will know where they are and could probably help your neighbour out.

For example in the case I mentioned that is local to me the guy that owns the business upped sticks and moved to Venice some time ago. He had a guy that works for him to do quite a few of the bookings they had taken and then he stopped turning up as well. (Suspect he stopped getting paid). Pretty much every local wedding photographer knows were they have gone.

It isn't just photographers and videographers of course many other wedding vendors have disappeared this year as well, fairly recently here a lot of people lost money after a wedding cake company and a room dressing company shut up shop and disappeared overnight, there has been a few bridal shops go the same way as well.

Lots of small businesses are struggling badly, sign of the times.

People do make silly decisions though. For example one wedding photographer here got in touch with all of their couples asking them to make payment in full for next year and 2024 and offering a £150 discount of they did. This means they are obviously having cash flow problems and probably won't be around to shoot those weddings. Their clients still went ahead and did it though. People often make silly decisions without thinking.
 
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If I had to do my wedding again I would ask more questions, do my research on reviews, and not pay in full.
A colleague got a little angry with me when she was searching for a wedding tog and could not book one that I would do the shoot.
I mentioned I will be a back if not on turns up or they are let down as weddings is not my thing, however I will help if necessary.
The point I am making is people are getting very concern and even desperate trying to get that booking / securing services for weddings, plus the cost has rocketed over the last 2 years !
 
Tysonator said:
If I had to do my wedding again I would ask more questions, do my research on reviews, and not pay in full.
Click to expand...

Imagine you would find it very difficult to find anyone that would agree to that. Only an idiot would turn up to photograph a wedding without being paid in full first.
 
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f/2.8 said:
Seen a lot of very similar stories this year more than any other year.

Just as one example a videographer / photographer who we have photographed a few weddings with has done a disappearing act leaving about 70-80 couples with no video footage or images.(depending on what they booked) They also after taking payment in full, didn't turn up to quite a few weddings as well. Idiots still continued to book them for some time after even after they had seen all the stuff about them being taken to small claims etc. on social media. They have since rebranded with a very similar business name and are continuing to take bookings for weddings that no one will turn up for.

It is pretty likely that local photographers and videographers will know where they are and could probably help your neighbour out.

For example in the case I mentioned that is local to me the guy that owns the business upped sticks and moved to Venice some time ago. He had a guy that works for him to do quite a few of the bookings they had taken and then he stopped turning up as well. (Suspect he stopped getting paid). Pretty much every local wedding photographer knows were they have gone.

It isn't just photographers and videographers of course many other wedding vendors have disappeared this year as well, fairly recently here a lot of people lost money after a wedding cake company and a room dressing company shut up shop and disappeared overnight, there has been a few bridal shops go the same way as well.

Lots of small businesses are struggling badly, sign of the times.

People do make silly decisions though. For example one wedding photographer here got in touch with all of their couples asking them to make payment in full for next year and 2024 and offering a £150 discount of they did. This means they are obviously having cash flow problems and probably won't be around to shoot those weddings. Their clients still went ahead and did it though. People
Click to expand...

BOM?

They're still advertising and taking peoples money.
 
Your neighbor can ask Companies House to stop the compulsory strike off while they sue them

and the home address is available from the CH website
 
f/2.8 said:
Imagine you would find it very difficult to find anyone that would agree to that. Only an idiot would turn up to photograph a wedding without being paid in full first.
Click to expand...
Yip , I done it once at the start of my journey and never again . Asked the groom at the end of the day if he had an envelope for me . His reply was "I did but it's behind the bar and it's now empty" he agreed to transfer the payment the next day . The next morning I got an email to say he would send payment through once he received all the RAWS! I replied by saying he had 24 hours to transfer the payment or all RAWS would end up in the recycle bin and if he paid he will get fully edited jpegs . Literally 23 1/2 hours later the payment landed in my bank . Turd of a man left me hanging right up to the deadline lol
 
T_J_G said:
BOM?

They're still advertising and taking peoples money.
Click to expand...
Yip ...I'm on a FB wedding group for that area and that seems the case . There's a post nearly everyday about them
 
Its seems that this has now been resolved.As I mentioned , I was posting after being contacted by a 'friend of a friend' of the wedding party and have no direct relationship to anyone involved but its good to know that strange as it may seem, the images have now been supplied. Thanks to all who have responded, I wonder if in any way this chat helped achieve a positive outcome?
Thanks and regards
Peter
 
f/2.8 said:
Imagine you would find it very difficult to find anyone that would agree to that. Only an idiot would turn up to photograph a wedding without being paid in full first.
Click to expand...
I have even thought that I should just got a bunch of amateur togs to do it, as our Pro man was late, difficult to get hold of, slow to supply any images, his web site was slow & did not show our images till many weeks later !
 
Limehouse said:
Its seems that this has now been resolved.As I mentioned , I was posting after being contacted by a 'friend of a friend' of the wedding party and have no direct relationship to anyone involved but its good to know that strange as it may seem, the images have now been supplied. Thanks to all who have responded, I wonder if in any way this chat helped achieve a positive outcome?
Thanks and regards
Peter
Click to expand...

Great stuff. I'm glad they got their pictures, this is something that could have caused them many years of upset so very happy it's been resolved.
 
Tysonator said:
I have even thought that I should just got a bunch of amateur togs to do it, as our Pro man was late, difficult to get hold of, slow to supply any images, his web site was slow & did not show our images till many weeks later !
Click to expand...

Turning up late is poor unless there was a valid reason. We have photographed over 500 weddings and been late on one occasion. Our lateness was because of one of the worst snow storms in recorded history. We still got there eventually but kept our couple up to date on how close we were until we arrived. Everyone else was late as well. What was the reason for their lateness?

You said your photographer was difficult to get the hold of. Couples often think the best way of contacting their wedding photographer is by email or social media messages. Emails often got to spam, as do messages on social media. Did he respond to phone calls in a prompt manor? If your wedding took place in the last year or so it has been the busiest year in history for weddings. We normally photograph 40-50 weddings a year, this year it will be more like 70 odd. Your wedding photographer may have been extremely busy. They may not have seen your emails or messages on social media as they may have went to spam. They may have had multiple back to back weddings and been unable to respond.

You said his website was slow, what has that got to do with anything?

You said your images did not show on his website until several weeks later. If you are talking about the actual delivery of your completed wedding gallery the average turnaround in the U.K is 3 months, personally we are quicker than that but this is the average amount of time based on the all the industry surveys that are done each year. This means if you received your gallery within several weeks, you received your images fast.

If you aren't talking about the delivery of your wedding gallery and are just talking about images from your wedding being used on his website that is different. Every wedding photographer will work differently. For us during very busy times we share images from maybe 1 in 4 of our weddings on our website, during less busy times we will share more, its the same with images shared on social media. It takes time to create blog posts etc. so during busy times this goes out the window a bit. Also if we have a lot of weddings in the same venue or a lot of similar weddings within a short period of time we won't upload those images to our website either. Images on the website are just there from a marketing point of view. Just as one example in the summer over 2 months we had 9 weddings in one particular venue, we shared images from 2 of those weddings on our social media and our website, one at the start of that period and one at the end. Even just recently we have had 5 weddings at the same venue, only two of those weddings will have photos uploaded to our website and social media, we might only actually share one of those.

Things like the turnaround time for receiving your images is something that you should have discussed with your photographer before you booked them, these sort of timescales are often included in the contract you sign when you book. Did your photographer meet those timescales? If you got your images within only several weeks, I would guess that he did.
 
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Tysonator said:
I have even thought that I should just got a bunch of amateur togs to do it, as our Pro man was late, difficult to get hold of, slow to supply any images, his web site was slow & did not show our images till many weeks later !
Click to expand...

Exactly what we did! We had a very small wedding and a few of the guests had cameras. When allowed, they took some in the RO and on the steps outside. When we got home after the ceremony and lunch, I put everything on the 'puter and dealt with them the day after - culling, editing and printing. Only looked at the album twice since (both times to show people who weren't there) and have one framed on the wall.
 
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