Hi! I am a very new photographer and posted on a local mom’s group promoting free photos so I can practice using my camera and photoshop. I had a really great response and scheduled a lot of them over the next few weeks.
Well tonight, I had 2 scheduled. They both confirmed our session and asked if they could do a little earlier, fine by me! The first family was scheduled for 5. I showed up to my spot 15 minutes early to test the lighting, ect. 10 minutes before her session,she texts me that her toddler was not having it. She cancelled. Whatever, annoying but it’s fine cuz I have another family coming at 520. So I’m waiting and at 5:15 the second session client texted and said she’s running late, probably going to be there at 5:30. Okay, I’ve waited this long what’s 10 more minutes… Then at 5:35 she texted again saying “so sorry, we are still running late. Almost there!” I texted back at 5:45 and said “do you have an ETA?” She texted back 12 minutes (5:52 now!) later saying “we are 1 mile away.” But that point I was already driving off.
Now both of my clients are asking to reschedule. These were FREE sessions and I wasted over an hour of my night. For what?!
Is it rude to not let them reschedule a free shoot? I feel like I need to live up to my obligations to my clients but also, that was a lot of wasted time and it’s not cool! How do I politely let them know that I will not be rescheduling free sessions anymore?
Without money involved like a small deposit people will take advantage of you. Doing this for free will make you run into this situation again and people won’t respect your time. I suggest charging extremely low amount but at least something so people take you more seriously with your time and effort. You can’t charge much because you are brand new and don’t have the skills/experience yet but just enough so you don’t feel it’s a total loss if they still do cancel.
I would still have them sign a contract stating if they X amount minutes late they will have to forgo a shorter session or you will drive away if they are late and wasting your time. Such as on my contract I have on there I won’t wait more than 20 minutes for a late client or they will forgo lighting which will make their session time shorter.
For future refer encourage for mini session for you to also leave wiggle room in between sessions in case people are late. Also let them know you have another session after theirs and so you have limited time if they are late. This will make people feel more aware of your schedule and if they are late then that’s all they get.
I also charge a $50 reschedule fee. Not much, but hey, it’s on my contract and they agree when signing. I’ve had to implement the fee many times for people who randomly reschedule for whatever reasons. I probably will increase the fee for next year to $75.