[kgphoto]

What kind of clients are you accepting? In 25 years, doing between 30-50 weddings a year, I only got stiffed maybe 12 times. By stiffed, I mean some got divorced on the honeymoon, some at the wedding (what a cake fight!), some lost jobs and had to delay ordering, and some just never got around to it.

Most of the time, I just turned them over to the collection company and they collected about 50% of those. Those they couldn't collect was because I didn't give them enough information to do their job. So my hiring process changed to insure that if my clients wanted to have credit extended to them, then I got all the info of any lender, or prepayments of fee's, and a huge cash deposit the value of my product. As an example, 200 5x5 color originals @ $15.00 is $3000 plus tax, plus the "shooting fee."

Once I started treating it like a business and acting professionally, there were few, if any, problems. Those who didn't want to give the info, had to put up the deposits, or hire someone else. I had one client, in Alaska, balk at the info request and when faced with the deposit amount, that I wouldn't budge on, finally gave me the info, and the job when off without a hitch. I had one client threaten me with all kinds of problems, but finally paid in full ( he wanted to know why his pictures of he and his daughter telling each other to F*** off, weren't as attractive as the groom's side.).

Don't be afraid to turn down jobs from deadbeats. If they won't respect you when they need you, they won't later either.