wedding photos dispute

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Question

Country: United States of America
State: California

I hired a photographer to do my wedding on July 7, 2004. We paid him in advance and he did take the pictures. The problem is that now we can't get any pictures or any disks with pictures on them from him. According to our contract we were supposed to get photo albums, single reprints, and a complete set of all the pictures on CD and we have received nothing. I started contacting him about the pictures in November of 2004. He would set dates on when we would receive our package and then miss them. This happened several times taking us to about March of 2005. Months went by and we didn't hear from him. Then we heard from an associate of his that he'd had 2 strokes and couldn't work, but this person would try and finish his work for him. This person also set many deadlines and missed them all. It is now December and we still have nothing. We have no physical address for the original photographer which I believe we need to even sue him in small claims court. We did all of our correspondence online and mailed our payments to a PO Box. I am not interested in getting my money back. I just want my wedding pictures. I have no other record of the day. This is my first and only wedding and I would like the photos of it that we and our parents paid for. Is there anyway I can do anything w/o having his address? I've even hired a PI to try and find him and she's not having any luck. Is there a statue of limitations on a case like this? I would hate to think that I'm being strung along so that they will have an out to the situation. I'm very distraught over this. My wedding was the happiest day of my life and I have no pictures of it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer

Based on what you say here, you could probably file suit against him (or at least threaten to do so) in small claims court or in regular court; filing in small claims court is easier and requires no attorney...you could try to collect all of the costs and damages that you suffered due to his behavior... a private detective could probablt find hs address for a modect cost...