The other day I search-engined "what to do if you lose the photos from a wedding" for no apparent reason, other than I had some time on my hands. I read two different questions and responses from two different sources, and both situations were equally appalling.
The first one I read, was about a photographer who apparently formatted their memory card on site, and accidentally formatted the card they had just filled up. This resulted in them losing 900 photos, and then shooting over them. The only response I could think of was "how could you be so stupid?"
I'm not sure why anyone would format their card on location for any type of photo shoot. Formatting is something that should be done either when you're preparing all of your equipment, or right when you arrive at the event before any photos are taken in order to avoid this type of situation. I can only assume that this photographer either wasn't a "professional," or was just starting out as a pro and made a silly mistake. I think it's safe to say that this person won't make the same mistake again because they either learned their lesson, or they'll never be hired again because I feel that this type of thing would spread quickly throughout their market. An easy way to avoid this situation, other than not formatting your memory cards on location, would be to use smaller memory cards. For some reason, people think it's better to buy huge memory cards that can store thousands of photos and use that single one. I buy smaller cards for this exact reason. I'd much rather have a handful of 8GB cards that can hold 250 photos and lose one of those, than have a 128GB memory card and lose thousands. With my camera, I have two card slots. I put the 8GB cards in one, and a much larger card in the second slot. The photos go to both, and when I get to editing, I usually put the larger card into the computer.
The second one I read, was the bride of a wedding who was having trouble with the photographer who took photos of their wedding. The bride said that the photographer took the photos, but then went to visit her boyfriend for X amount of days, then went to Europe for some reason, and then a month or two after the wedding contacted the bride to let her know that she had lost all of the photos to the reception.
There are so many things wrong with this scenario and how the photographer handled the situation that I don't even know where to begin.
I guess the first thing I think the photographer should have done was let the bride know as soon as possible that the photos were lost. I'm hoping that the photographer wasn't just starting to edit the photos when they let the bride know she wouldn't be getting any photos from the reception.
The second thing that's wrong, and probably the worst, is that the photographer took time to do personal things before delivering the photos to the client. If you're a "professional," you're expected to deliver the photos in a timely fashion. Even if you're not a professional, and a friend asks you to take some photos for them and pays you, you should still deliver the images as soon as possible; not months later. If you're marketing yourself as a photographer, and you work for a client, then the client comes first. This is "Owning a Business 101," here. You don't go running around all over the world and then decide it's time to deliver what you promised.
These two situations are exactly why you should hire someone who knows what they're doing, and who you know will deliver what they promise. If I had to guess, I would say these two "pros" are your "uncle Fred" type of photographers, who have a nice camera, so people think that they're a professional photographer who can deliver professional work. Don't go for the most inexpensive photographer you can find if the event you need a photographer for is important to you, because, like with everything, you get what you pay for.
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