Having read this story in the papers this morning, we were scrambling to ensure it didn’t happen in Essex, and luckily for our Essex bridal parties, this awful wedding photographer appears to be from West Yorkshire.

For those of you who missed the story, newlyweds Sylvia and Mark paid Gareth Bowyers of Fresh Images a whopping £1,450 to be their wedding photographer. The package was supposed to contain a series of high quality photographs as you’d expect for that kind of fee, instead they received out of focus shots, snaps of bored guests, and random close-ups of cars.
The bungling photographer also managed to chop their heads of in some of the wedding photos.

Bowers was also in charge of the videographer, and failed to edit out a section of the DVD where the cameraman dropped the equipment and swore.

Marc and Sylvia are suing Fresh Images for breach of contract – hardly surprising at Bowers even managed to spell the bride’s name “Slyvia” on the wedding’s thank you cards he made to send out to their families.

The couple had met up with Bowers on several occasions in the run up to their wedding, and discussed specific requirements to make sure the wedding photographs were planned to perfection. However, on their wedding day, another team turned up at the bride’s home in Wakefield.

Sylvia said: “It unnerved me a bit but I just decided I had to get on with it and thought everything would be fine.

“But things went from bad to worse as the photographer and videographer kept missing important key points throughout the day.

“He missed us turning up at the reception and also missed the cutting of the cake and you can see how angry I’m getting on the wedding video – I even do a psycho slashing knife action, which I can’t believe they left in.”

Thankfully, last week a judge found in favour of Mr & Mrs Days and critised Bowers’ wedding business practices, inappropriate photos and woefully inadequate service. The judge then ordered Bowers to pay back £500 of the £1,450 they paid him.
Delivering his judgement at Pontefract County Court, Judge Nightingale said: “It is not just the quality of the photographs, but the subject of the photos is unworthy of wedding photographs.”

To see the dreadful photographs – then have a look at the Sun newspaper.

If you’re looking for high quality wedding photographers in Essex, then browse through our website. We do of course recommend that you spend time with your wedding photographer before the event, see samples of their previous work, check any organisations they may be members of, and ensure it will be them who arrives on your wedding day to perform the role of wedding photographer.