Booking a hotel for my photographer

That sounds really weird - I've never heard of a photographer asking you to book him a hotel room before. What does his contract say? Most people will have a set rate for expenses/travel.

I'm always a bit wary when I hear about a supplier giving you a price and then going 'oh, by the way, that doesn't include...and the price will increase by x if you don't provide...' etc, etc.

That sounds very odd - both the to-ing and fro-ing over the costs and the fact that he doesn't normally provide a contract. Have you signed anything? Got anything in writing as to what he will provide and what the costs will be?

This sort of thing can happen when wedding photography is booked through a separate site or rather through an "introduction" site. No contract - adding extras - travelling 2 hours for a wedding all sounding alarm bells I'm afraid. You have said that you liked them - have you seen a whole wedding from them. Do they have a website, do they have a business email - not a hot mail or gmail one. The stay over cost should of been included in the quote if they knew that they would be needing to staying over, they don't sound very professional in my opinion.

I think you should find another photographer. So many red flags about this one.

Instagram but no website or email? Screams newbie or side hustle.

Chopping and changing about costs? Unprofessional behaviour at best.

Insisting that you have booked him even though there is nothing in writing and he hasn't even confirmed total costs and what exactly he will provide for that money? That's straight up emotional blackmail.

When you say he is registered on the Gov website which one would that be - is it companies House which is a data base for LTD companies ? . Just a heads up on that is that anyone can register for a £12 cost and its done in 24 hours.

Only seeing the best of the best that they can find for Instagram is not really the most accurate way of judging someone, you need to see whole wedding samples.

Also what I am seeing right now it seems are lots of "wedding shoots" which are basically fake weddings which then get posted on their Instagram. Not saying this is the case here but just a heads up for others. A few tell tale signs for spotting one.

There are no guests anywhere,

Its just the bride and groom, no bridesmaids or groomsmen

The Couple are beautiful (they are models )

For some reason the "groom" seems to be wearing a dicky bow a lotXD

Table settings set up for only 12 people or so, rather that a whole room.

No registrars seen anywhere.

They look totally different to their actual real weddings they have shot.

I would question why someone would need to travel a 4 hour round trip for work. Unless they were very expensive and very much sort after.

How much are they and what do you get for that.

I'm not sure if this might just sound like a miss communication episode and all a bit messy as all of the numbers seem about right. Not sure what the hours difference is 8 or 6 as most weddings-- photography wise end at about the first dance which is usually 99% of the time 8 pm give or take 30 mins and for me I like to get some dance floor action shots after the first dance as anything after that tends to be just chaos drunk which may be great photos but you do not need a pro for that.

But you need a contract and perhaps I would say look for someone closer.

OK that 2 hour travel- what happens if they are stuck on the motorway on the way to you - it can happen. But that could be why they want you to pay for a night over- are they getting there the day before to neglect any motorway problems or are they wanting you to pay for them to stay over because they do not want to drive home.

You should not need to care about them getting home but the concentration should be ensuring that they are there for the ceremony so why should you be paying them extra to stay over to make sure that they are there for you the day before. Hope I am making sense. I say book some one closer.

The big thing right now with weddings is sustainability but no consideration seems to be placed on the distance suppliers need to travel.

Also worth thinking about is someone who is ok to travel 2 hours and they also travel back and so could be getting back past midnight perhaps.

Then consider that they should be doing best practice and downloading those shots from the camera to the computer or hard drive, then should also be backing that up to another medium, but they also have another wedding the next - or rather that day so now they should also be doing camera and equipment checks, charging battery's.

So now its 2 am but they have to get up at 7 for the next wedding ----- and that wedding is yours !

There was a photographer who worked like that who left the camera downloading and went to bed when they got up for the next days wedding - deleted the previous wedding from the camera and shot the new one, got back that night to realise that the wedding the day before did not download overnight and was lost.

I hear photographers "bragging" that they are shooting 50 weddings a year - ask yourself how are they working to fit that many in the 8 months of peak wedding season, what effect is that having on your photo delivery times.

To ease the pressure some send all the days shoot to another country with a low wage economy who do the cutting down of image numbers and also the editing. Not something I feel safe with.

It all depends on logistics to be honest, and their contract. Mine states that if the wedding is over 100 miles from my home, then I require a hotel - it's not safe to be driving over 2 hours exhausted after being on your feet photographing a 10+ hour wedding. It's usually only on the night of the wedding, unless it's a very early start in the morning. Most weddings require me to travel as I don't get local weddings, hence why this is quite common for my business. Usually the first question is "where are you getting married?" so there should've been communication on the hotel (travel expenses) right off the bat.