A wedding photographer opened a signed contract from a couple and realized they quietly removed her right to food and drink

Wedding photographer Alexandria Mae has kicked off a discussion about client boundaries following a TikTok where she details what she describes as a very serious red flag for an independent vendor. She’s talking about a situation where prospective clients sent her back a revised, signed contract without any prior discussion.

Alexandria (who runs her own photography business as @alexmaephotos) makes a distinction between negotiating with a vendor and taking advantage of a small business. She says contract amendments are normal in the early stages of wedding planning, but she feels that clients go over the line when they rewrite the contract or introduce new clauses once both parties have agreed to the terms.

In the video, she gives advice to other wedding photographers about the absolute necessity of using contracts. She points out that some clients simply don’t appreciate the amount of work that goes into producing a set of wedding photos. That lack of appreciation can, in some cases, lead to photographers being taken advantage of, even if it’s not intentional.

She says the changes added up to a red flag

A standard wedding photography contract will set out what the client is paying for, when they can expect to receive their photos and what the photographer is expected to deliver. Alexandria said that altering those terms without the photographer’s knowledge could leave an independent vendor open to financial and legal exposure.

She then described what she says happened with a recent job offer. “My whole contract was changed!” she said. One commenter suggested the clients may have just been negotiating, so Alexandria read out what she described as some of the proposed changes so viewers could decide for themselves.

According to Alexandria, the prospective clients wanted their wedding photos delivered in 30 days. She said that other proposed terms were more of a concern. They didn’t want her to expect food and drink at the wedding.

She also said the agreement would have given the clients the option to cancel the event and reschedule it for a later date without necessarily losing her services. Another change she saw as a red flag would have given them the right to sell the wedding photos if they wanted to.

She also noted that independent vendors don’t have the same resources as big companies. Photographers, wedding planners, florists and caterers in particular won’t have in-house legal teams or risk management departments. For them, a well-drafted contract is one of the very few things they have to protect their time and their income.

This could signal a wider communication problem

Other wedding professionals and commenters joined the discussion, sharing stories of unexpected contract changes, increased workloads, and demands they found utterly unreasonable. A number of small business owners appeared to sympathize with Alexandria’s concerns, suggesting that changing agreed terms without discussion might be a symptom of a wider communication problem. They felt that this problem could be particularly difficult to deal with on the day itself.

We Got This Covered was unable to independently verify the prospective clients’ side of the story, as this account originates solely from Alexandria’s TikTok videos.