A Missed Opportunity in Case of Mistaken Identity - Britain's worst wedding photos

The papers today have been full of a story of "the worst wedding photos ever" by a photography company known as Westgate Photography run by Ian McCloskey. Despite the hype that the papers have put on it there are plenty of worse wedding photos when some of the ones shown could have been rescued with some basic editing. Thomas and Anneka Geary paid £750 for their wedding photos which probably gives some idea of the likely quality to expect. The type of story is nothing new and we covered something very similar in our blog about choosing your wedding photographer carefully back in 2010.

Hopefully not the worst wedding photography ever - from one of our weddings

Unfortunately another wedding photographer also trades under the name Westgate Photography and appear at number 1 in Google if you search for Westgate Photography. They appear to have realised the connection and placed a banner stating they are not linked.

However with this perfect opportunity to promote their wedding photography and the benefits of hiring a professional with the right kit, experience and insurance they seem to have totally missed the mark. The most recent post on their blog is 15 February 2012, blogs are so easy to update at very short notice there is no excuse not to react to the latest news if it could benefit your business. With social media and promotion the key is to move fast while the traffic is searching for the story. Wait even 24 or 48 hours and the story is old news and in newpaper terms will be wrapping someones fish & chips.

With the human canonball tragedy that happened a year ago this week the spike in traffic was amazing. Our YouTube channel had over 400,000 hits in just over 24 hours and our daily blog traffic increased 10 times overnight. With a story like the "the worst wedding photos ever" that has been so widely covered across both print media, online and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter the potential promotion loss to Westgate Photography has been huge.

So the moral of the story is - if you see the potential for a story - act fast and make the most of the aspects of the news to promote yourself even if the original aspect could have been negative.

Choose Your Wedding Photographer Carefully - Simple Checks to avoid wedding photography disasters

A couple of friends have recently had some bad experiences with their wedding photographers, unfortunately they only asked for advice after the event rather than before making their choice and parting with money.

There are a few simple checks you can perform before you book your wedding photographer to try to avoid the pitfalls of wedding photography disasters. Generally with wedding photography all money is paid up front before the day so it isnt possible to withold payment in the event of poor service.

One couple were very disappointed by the results from their wedding photographer. He had charged a premium price of £1500 for a basic service but even so the couple were disappointed by the results for someone supposed to be a professional and claiming membership of the SWPP and BPA professional photography bodies. When I was told the name I immediately popped it into Google to run some checks. What I found both shocked and amazed me.

Firstly the photographer's website was no longer operational, a single address on the page surrounded by Google adwords. More suprisingly the photographer had been convicted of a criminal offence a couple of years previously. Finally despite claiming professional membership it appears that this had lapsed and he was no longer a member of SWPP.

All of this information would have been available before the booking was placed. The conviction was at least 12 months before the booking was placed and was on the website of a national tabloid.

I would urge anyone thinking of booking someone for wedding photography or indeed any other service to use Google to perform some basic checks. Sometimes this isn't possible when a name is very common but often a search will throw up some very useful information that could confirm your decision one way or another and possibly save you the heartache of a wedding photographer disaster.