Wow…. August 3, 2008
Have you ever just had one of the most “WTF just happened” kind of days?? Because I just had one of those days yesterday that took me straight back to the immaturity of 3rd grade. I found myself falling asleep last night in bed saying “what the….? how the heck did this just happen…?”. Oddly enough, this has nothing to do with food.
Let me fill you in.
The hubby and I have a photography business. I think that everyone should know that by now…ha! My husbands best friend of nearly 15 years is getting married in October. His fiance is a friend of mine (at the moment, the word “friend” is being used loosely) and she was the bridesmaid at our wedding. Hubby’s best friend was the Best Man. They started dating the month after our wedding. Awww.. how sweet.
Fast forward 5 years. They are now engaged and getting married in October (yep, the wedding I’m supposed to be in). They asked us last year how much we would charge them to do their engagement pictures. We talked about it and told them we’d love to do them for free as a wedding present to them. We were supposed to do their pictures this past Spring to give them time to lose some weight. Well, they never lost the weight. Then, they decided to do them in July of this year. They (or she, rather) wanted to wait until the last possible day in July to shoot the pictures to give them a month to lose some weight (we were talking about this in June). But she wanted the pictures to display at her bridal showers. She’s having 5 of them, the first one was this past weekend, Aug. 2. I tell her, no problem. We will take your pictures on the last Sunday of July and we will move them to the top of the list for editing.
So, we take the pictures. I tell them they will have them by Thursday. They call on Tuesday wanting to know if the pictures are done. They want to come pick them up. I think “wow”. Did they really, seriously just call 2 days after we shot their pictures and expect them to be done? But my hubby busted his REAR to finish them up (I had already edited my part of them so I could come to my parents house for a few days). THEN, after my husband tells them they’ll be ready Tuesday night, she has my husbands best friend call and ask if they can also have the originals. WHAT? WHAT? Really? Please tell me you are kidding? I know that we are your friends, but this is also our business. It’s how we make money. And you want us to hand over the edited photos as well as the originals? So, I tell my husband absolutely not. It’s not how photographers do it. So, my husband “accidentally” deleted the originals so he wouldn’t have to lie when he told them the originals got deleted. So, what would normally take us nearly a week to edit, we did in 2 days! I would think that that would deserve some sort of appreciation….
Already, at this point, I’ve discussed with my husband how much more trouble these 2 have been than any paying customers. We’ve bent over backward to accomodate them and we don’t get “thanks, we appreciate it so much”…. we just get absolute crap! 
But wait, there’s more….
She had asked me if I would take pictures at her Bridal shower. I say “no problem”. My hubby needs to keep our camera in Oklahoma, so she said I could use her camera. So, I bring my lens and memory card and use her camera to take some pictures at the shower. I was really excited about the pictures I was able to take. I couldn’t wait to edit them to give her some really cool pictures from her shower. Well, this brings us to last night.
I’m on the phone with my husband when I hear his friends cell phone ring (the hubby went to his friends house to hang out while I came to my parents house). I hear the best friend ask my husband to ask me where the pictures are at. I tell him that they are on my memory card here at my parents house. It is then that all hell breaks loose. I’m not even kidding. This girl goes on a f-l-i-p-p-i-n rampage like I’ve just taken her most prized possession and burned it in the street and ran over it with my car two or three times while laughing hysterically in her face. I’m not even kidding. I wish I was dramatizing this a little more than what really happened - but sadly, I am not. She goes on a rampage. After about 20 minutes he says “why don’t you just call julie and talk to her about it”. At that point, I tell my husband I will not be answering any phone calls from her when she is like that. I am not a confrontational person in the least bit and break down into a heap of emotions and bawl like a baby. There is no way I’m going to let her do that to me. She apparently thinks that I have taken the pictures hostage and will refuse to let her see them (she, her mother and her future mother-in-law all sat at the shower and looked through the pictures). She did try to call me, but I did not answer. So, she called her fiance back (all the while I’m on the phone with my husband). She said that if I’m not going to answer the phone she’s just going to come to my parents house then. (wow!). I tell the hubby that if she even dares to come over here, and ring the doorbell at nearly 11:00 at night while my kids are sleeping and make the dogs go crazy, I will not answer, but my dad will……and he won’t be happy. So, she’s still flipping out. I hear bits and pieces of what her fiance is saying to her because he’s pacing the hallway trying to calm her down. (I’m not even kidding…. she’s doing this over 40 pictures from a bridal shower). I’m bawling my eyes out because I haven’t seen this much drama since I was a TEENAGER! So then she wants to know if she can get her pictures tomorrow. Well, I don’t have a card reader at my parents house nor do I feel like shelling out money to go get the pictures put on a disc for her. She apparently wants them all on her mothers computer before she leaves to go back to Oklahoma the next day (which would be today). I hear her fiance telling her that her mother doesn’t have a way to view RAW images on her computer, so none of the pictures would pull up even if she had them.
Eventually she starts saying that it’s not about the pictures anymore, it’s about me not talking to her on the phone. I say bullcrap - if it wasn’t about the pictures anymore she’d stop bringing up the question of when tomorrow she can come get them from me. That problem would have been solved the second that he told her her mothers computer would be useless in getting any of the pictures off the disc. However, she was determined to get the pictures (unedited) asap, regardless if the computer could read the files or not. She was stamping her feet acting like a 2 year old in the midst of a tantrum. AND, her fiance tells her that SHE gets the SAME way when something happens to really piss her off - she doesn’t want to confront anyone or talk to anyone about it until things cool off. Yet, she can’t understand why I don’t want to talk to her after she absolutely flipped her ever lovin lid over 40 pictures!!!!!
So, I tell the hubby I’m going to write her an email via myspace. He tells his friend that. His friend tells her. She sends me a text message that says (and I am quoting this) “please do not send a message through myspace, I will not be checking it”. Wow again. Is she really being this immature? Over 40 pictures? Really?
So, I write her a message anyway. Not only do I send it via Myspace, I also send it to her via Facebook and 2 of her email addresses. She was on myspace last night shortly after I sent it. She did not read it until this morning. I did not get a reply from her, nothing.
Here is what my message said:
The subject was : “Someone once said ‘it’s not a really wedding without some kind of drama’”
Crap… isn’t that what I said a few months ago. Double crap because I didn’t ever intend to be part of any drama involved with your wedding….
Listen - I apologize to the moon and back that I forgot to tell you about using our memory card to take pictures today. It was an honest to God mistake, I swear. If I could go back in time I would even have written a big sign on my forehead that said “HEY *her name was here*, I WANT TO USE MY OWN MEMORY CARD TODAY”.
I swear to you it was not done to infuriate anyone, it was not done with malicious intent, I did not kidnap your pictures, I’m not holding your pictures hostage… I was excited to get to come take some really cool, nifty pictures of a bridal shower for a friend of mine whose wedding I get to be in! The only pictures I got of my bridal shower (my one single bridal shower) was with Tina’s camera and I didn’t get them until AFTER my wedding. So, I wanted to do for you what was not done for me and take some neat pictures and be able to edit them for you and make them look SO super-cool so that you could have some awesome pictures of your Branson Shower. That was it. I wasn’t trying to be sneaky or devious. I would hope that you’ve known me long enough to know that I wouldn’t do that. There are, maybe 50 pictures, and it would take literally 2 hours to edit them. I wasn’t planning on waiting to do it in my free time. Like your engagement pictures, I planned to put them at the top of the pile of pictures that we have to edit. That’s it. That was my plan. Had I used my own camera today, that would have still been my plan. 75% of my bridal party sucked and didn’t want to be on top of things or didn’t want to do things for me. I don’t want to be that kind of a “bridal party” for you guys. I realize that this is a H-U-G-E misunderstanding that was caused by my forgetfulness. I’m sorry that it got blown out of all kinds of proportion like it was. It sucks. It sucks big ass. It sucks even bigger ass if you don’t read this tonight.
I’m going to call our old neighbors tomorrow to see if they have a card reader to see if I can burn off your pictures so I can somehow get them to you tomorrow. I’ll text or call you either way when I find out something from them.
So…………………………..this is where we are…….
I am sorry that I didn’t tell you about the memory card, but you have to trust me, *her name here*, that I’m not an evil person who is out to mis-lead you or in some way screw you over…..
As far as me not talking on the phone… I get like this. This put me on a HUGE emotional roller coaster tonight - one like I haven’t been on in a while - I think because you are one of my few friends and I haven’t experienced anything like this with any of my friends since the Erika/Tina days). I went through many emotions at one time tonight. People are different in how they react to things like this. Some people want to talk to everyone about it… others (such as myself) would prefer to let everything cool off and withdraw myself from everyone (except for Brett, for obvious reasons). It has nothing to do with you at all. I wouldn’t want to talk to my mom, dad, sister, aunts, uncles… even people who have nothing to do with the situation. I can’t explain it. I wish I could then maybe I could fix it. So… there’s my attempt to trying to somewhat help you understand that part (though I think I confused myself…sheesh!!!!)
PS yes, I sent this to any email address I have of yours….. I’m just really cool like that.
There it is. So, I expected some sort of a “it’s okay, I apologize for blowing up about it” email or text today. But, alas… nothing. All I got from her was a text this morning that said “hey I am leaving in less than an hour am I going to be able to get my pictures?”. To that I told her I would be mailing the card to my husband and he could put them on a disc for her. She then asked if it wouldn’t be cheaper for her to take the card to him (why on earth is she SO desperate to get ahold of the pictures?!?!). So, I finally threw my hands in the air, decided to take the high road and I put the card in the mailbox and told her to come pick it up. So, no apology from her. Nothing. No “I’m sorry, I over reacted”. It was just…. ” I want my pictures”. It would have felt SOOO good to me to tell her to forget it, she couldn’t get her pictures today and would just have to wait until I edited them. But, for once, I wanted to be the bigger person.
I believe that I will probably be dropping out of their wedding. If she can’t be mature enough to apologize for something that she shared fault in, I don’t have time for the drama surrounding it. My life is too short to endure stuff like this from people who I consider a friend. She threw a tantrum, yelled, screamed, stamped her foot and got her way. The only satisfaction I have is in knowing that her mothers computer can’t read those types of files…. so even if she tried to put them on there it wouldn’t work. She should be back in Oklahoma right now. I only wonder what kind of conversation she and her fiance are having. I wonder how pleased she is with herself since she got her way. From now on, any pictures I take at all, no matter who they are for… I am going to be sure to make it known that I will not be giving anyone ANY unedited photos. PERIOD!
So………. with all things, I will keep you updated. It just feels SO good to VENT!!!
