Thoughts
I need outside opinions because this whole situation has honestly been weighing on me.
I’m a newer photographer and I photographed my friend’s engagement, nikkah, and wedding basically out of love and support. I spent countless hours shooting, editing, re-editing, communicating back and forth, and genuinely trying to make her happy. I was also transparent from the beginning that I’m still growing and not some huge professional studio.
At first everything seemed fine. She kept saying she appreciated me, wanted to pay me, and was excited about the photos. The main issue started over edits and posting. She had a very specific vision in her head for editing that honestly just didn’t fully align with my style, and I tried multiple times to adjust things for her. Then there was a miscommunication about posting photos.
From my perspective, I genuinely did not realize she felt that strongly about wanting to post first. She says she felt uncomfortable with certain photos and didn’t want things posted yet. I honestly thought she was asking me when I was posting because she wanted them posted soon. Looking back, it was clearly miscommunication on both sides.
But after that, the whole tone shifted. Suddenly it felt like all the effort, time, and love I poured into documenting some of the biggest moments of her life meant nothing. I even offered to send her the RAW/unedited files because I knew we clearly weren’t seeing eye to eye creatively and I didn’t want her to feel trapped with edits she didn’t love.
What hurts the most is that this was someone I cared about. I did her engagement, nikkah, and wedding, spent HOURS editing and communicating, and now the friendship feels like it’s falling apart over one misunderstanding and differences in creative vision.
I completely understand clients are allowed to dislike edits or want more control over how they look online. But I also feel hurt because I never had bad intentions, genuinely tried my best, and now I’m being left feeling unappreciated and emotionally drained from the entire experience.
I guess this whole thing taught me that mixing friendship and business without clear boundaries and contracts can go really wrong, even when both people mean well.
Am I wrong for feeling hurt by this whole situation?