The agreement that goes with your booking. For the readable summary, see what to expect.
1.1 This agreement is between Jo Dawne Photography ("the Photographer") and the client or clients named on the booking form ("you"). Where two people sign, you are each individually and jointly responsible for everything in this agreement.
1.2 The Photographer will photograph your wedding and related events with reasonable care and skill, in the manner described in this agreement and the booking form.
1.3 This agreement, together with the booking form, is the whole agreement between us. Any change must be agreed in writing by both of us. Email is fine.
1.4 This agreement is governed by New Zealand law.
1.5 If any part of this agreement is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the rest of it continues to apply.
2.1 Securing your date. Your date is held only once you have signed this agreement and paid the booking retainer of 25% of the total fee. Until both are received, the date remains available to others.
2.2 What the retainer covers. The retainer covers the Photographer's work in securing and holding your date, declining other bookings for it, and preparing for your wedding. It is a genuine estimate of the cost to the Photographer of losing that date. It is not refundable except as set out in clause 3.
2.3 Paying in instalments. Many couples book a year or more ahead and pay the balance off gradually across that time. You are welcome to do that, at whatever pace suits you, and it costs nothing extra. There is no interest, no fee, and no minimum instalment.
2.4 The balance. The full balance must be paid no later than 31 days before your wedding date. This is a firm requirement, not a guideline. Wedding photography in New Zealand is paid for before the day, and the Photographer does not shoot a wedding that has not been paid for.
2.5 How to pay. Direct credit to the account shown on your invoice.
2.6 GST. Jo Dawne Photography is not currently registered for GST. No GST is charged on the prices quoted, and no GST invoice can be issued. The price you are quoted is the price you pay.
2.7 If the balance is not paid. If the balance has not been paid by the due date and you have not contacted the Photographer to make other arrangements, the Photographer may treat the booking as cancelled under clause 3, keep the money already paid, and will not attend your wedding.
3.1 You cancel. Tell the Photographer in writing, by email to jo@jodawne.co.nz, as early as you can. The retainer is not refunded. If you cancel within 31 days of the wedding date, the full balance remains payable, because the date can no longer realistically be rebooked.
3.2 You postpone. If you move your wedding and the Photographer is available on the new date, everything you have paid transfers across, at the prices in effect when you booked, provided the new date is within 18 months of the original. If the Photographer is not available, clause 3.1 applies, but the Photographer will make genuine efforts to recommend another photographer of similar standard.
3.3 Circumstances outside anyone's control. If your wedding cannot proceed because of something neither of us could have reasonably prevented, including natural disaster, a public health order, or a government restriction on gatherings, the Photographer will transfer your booking to a new date without penalty, subject to availability.
3.4 The Photographer cannot attend. If illness, accident, or any other serious circumstance prevents the Photographer attending, she will make every reasonable effort to arrange a replacement photographer of comparable standard, at no extra cost to you. If no replacement can be found, all money you have paid will be refunded in full. See also clause 12.
4.1 The Photographer will provide coverage for the hours, dates and locations set out on your booking form.
4.2 Extra hours can be added on the day by agreement, charged at the Photographer's current hourly rate and invoiced afterwards.
4.3 Please confirm your schedule at least one week before the wedding, and tell the Photographer promptly about any change of time or venue.
4.4 The Photographer will make every reasonable effort to capture the moments and groupings you have asked for. A list is a helpful guide and will be treated as one, but no individual photograph can be guaranteed, because weddings do not run to script.
4.5 Unless agreed in advance, the Photographer will be the only professional photographer engaged for your wedding. She may bring one assistant.
4.6 Guests are welcome to take their own photos. Please ask them not to stand in the way of the Photographer during the ceremony and formal photographs.
4.7 The Photographer is not responsible for coverage affected by things outside her control, including weather, lighting and backgrounds at the venue, restrictions imposed by the venue or celebrant, schedule overruns, or interference by other people's cameras and flashes.
5.1 The Photographer selects which photographs are delivered, using her professional judgement. Frames that are technically poor, duplicated, or unflattering will not be included.
5.2 Delivered images include colour correction and the Photographer's standard editing. Your gallery may include a mix of colour and black and white images, chosen for what suits each frame.
5.3 Additional retouching beyond the standard edit can be arranged for an extra fee.
5.4 Raw, unedited files are not supplied. They are working files and are not representative of the Photographer's finished work.
Under section 21(3) of the Copyright Act 1994, where someone commissions and pays for a photograph, that person owns the copyright by default. This clause sets out a different arrangement, which is the normal one in professional photography.
6.1 You and the Photographer agree that, despite section 21(3) of the Copyright Act 1994, the Photographer is the first owner of the copyright in every photograph taken under this agreement.
6.2 To the extent that any copyright in the photographs would otherwise belong to you, you assign that copyright to the Photographer absolutely, now and in respect of future photographs, as soon as each photograph is taken.
6.3 You will sign any further document the Photographer reasonably needs in order to confirm or record that assignment.
6.4 The Photographer asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of the photographs.
7.1 The Photographer grants you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive licence to use your wedding photographs for any personal, non-commercial purpose. That includes printing them at any size, sharing them with family and friends, and posting them on your own social media.
7.2 You may not sell your photographs, licence them to anyone else, or supply them to any business for commercial use. That includes wedding suppliers, venues, magazines, and competition entries by third parties. If a supplier or venue asks you for images, send them to the Photographer, who will usually say yes.
7.3 Please do not crop, apply filters to, or otherwise alter the photographs before sharing them publicly. The edit is part of the work.
7.4 A credit to Jo Dawne Photography when you post publicly is appreciated and never required.
8.1 Your online gallery will normally be ready within 6 to 8 weeks of your wedding. If something delays it, the Photographer will tell you rather than leaving you wondering.
8.2 Your gallery remains available online for 3 months. Please download everything during that time.
8.3 Once your gallery closes, looking after your files is your responsibility. The Photographer does not guarantee to keep an archive indefinitely and you should not treat her storage as your backup. Keep at least two copies in different places, and move them onto new media every few years as technology changes.
8.4 If you lose your files and the Photographer still holds them, she will usually be able to help, and may charge a retrieval fee.
9.1 After your wedding, the Photographer will design an album telling the story of your day. You are under no obligation to buy it. You will see the finished design first and decide then.
9.2 Magazine cover artwork is included with every wedding package. The artwork is yours. You may print it wherever you wish, or the Photographer can arrange printing through a local printer, in which case you choose the size and the price.
9.3 Products and services not listed on your booking form are charged at the prices current when you order them.
9.4 Any print or product credits included in your package must be used within 6 months of your gallery going live.
9.5 The Photographer cannot be responsible for the colour or quality of prints you order from anyone other than her or her nominated lab.
10.1 The Photographer would like to show your photographs in her portfolio, on her website and social media, in competition and award entries, in printed samples, and when approaching wedding venues and suppliers.
10.2 By signing this agreement you consent to that use.
10.3 If you would prefer she did not, simply tell her. Write it on the booking form, or email at any time, including after the wedding. The Photographer will remove your images from public display within a reasonable time and will not ask you to justify the request. Images already printed in physical samples or published by third parties may not be recoverable.
10.4 The Photographer will not sell your photographs to a stock library or licence them for advertising by an unrelated business without asking you first.
10.5 If your wedding involves children, the Photographer will take particular care, and will not publish images of children without a parent or guardian being comfortable with it.
11.1 The Photographer collects your names, contact details, wedding details, and the photographs themselves. This information is held so she can provide the service and keep proper business records.
11.2 Your information is handled in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020. It will not be sold or passed to anyone else for marketing.
11.3 You may ask to see the personal information the Photographer holds about you, and ask for it to be corrected, at any time.
12.1 Nothing in this agreement limits your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or the Fair Trading Act 1986 where you are engaging the Photographer as a consumer rather than for business purposes. Those rights cannot be contracted out of, and this agreement does not try to.
12.2 Subject to clause 12.1, if photographs are lost or damaged through equipment failure, theft, file corruption, or any similar cause, the Photographer's responsibility is limited to a full refund where no usable photographs can be delivered at all, or a proportionate refund where part of the coverage is lost.
12.3 Subject to clause 12.1, the Photographer is not liable for indirect or consequential loss.
12.4 The Photographer carries professional equipment, shoots to two memory cards where her camera allows it, and backs up to more than one location after every wedding. These limits exist for genuine disasters, not as an excuse for carelessness.
13.1 You are responsible for the behaviour of your guests toward the Photographer and any assistant.
13.2 If the Photographer experiences threatening, hostile, or sexually inappropriate behaviour from anyone at your wedding, she will raise it with you or a member of your family at the time. If it continues, she may stop work and leave. In that event she keeps the money already paid, and is not responsible for the resulting gap in coverage.
13.3 The Photographer will not work in conditions that are genuinely unsafe. She will always discuss it with you first and find another way to get the photograph.
14.1 Talk to the Photographer first. Most problems are a misunderstanding and are fixed by a conversation.
14.2 If that does not resolve it, we will both genuinely attempt mediation before either of us starts legal proceedings.
14.3 Nothing stops either of us taking a claim to the Disputes Tribunal, which is designed for exactly this kind of disagreement and does not require lawyers.
Prefer the short version? The what to expect page says all of this in plain English. This page is what you actually sign, and governs if the two ever differ.