LOVEphotography STUDIO POLICIES and TERMS & CONDITIONS: agreement is required before any booking can be confirmed.
click here for our location on google maps and all our reviews!
1) LOVEphotography's unique FamilyFun! shooting style: this has been created and developed by both of us over many years as our skills and experience in family photography have developed. As well as our fun/lightly directed shots of all different groupings - our real special talent is capturing all the natural in-between moments too! These are the ones you'll love the most as the years go on, the ones that capture true spirit and personality of your children and the moments you share with them - these are the ones that really tell your family story :) Our studio is specially designed for immediate family, so you can share the shoot experience with your little ones (or big ones - families with older kids are welcome too!) and our shoot style is all about having fun together as a family. If you are looking for a traditional, full length, formal style, or you just want to recreate a portrait from years ago, then we are probably not the right studio for you - but... we'd recommend having a good look through our gallery, and have a read of our google reviews (see above for the link...) and think about capturing something different this time - all we ask is that you come with an open mind, relax in our studio and enjoy some fun time with your family - and let us take care of all the rest :) Our FamilyFun! shoot style is best suited to families with at least one child under 18, but families with older children love it too - you just need to be up for spending an hour having fun together as a family, and you'll have a great time :)
2) Our FamilyFun! photoshoots require full family household, with at least one (human!) child, but you are very welcome to bring their pet siblings too! Parents are essential to the FamilyFun! so if you are two parents, then both of you need to join in! Basically, it's not a FamilyFun! shoot unless everyone in your immediate family is there to share the experience together. There are other shoots on our 'Buy A Voucher' page which are for baby solo, pet solo, and the bigLOVE for couples, solos, grandparents and grandchildren, siblings, friends, headshots and many more! But our favourite, and what we're best known for, is our FamilyFun! style, so please have a read of the reviews, look at the gallery of images and think about sharing the experience together as a family - when you look at the moments captured as your family grows older, you'll be so happy you did :)
3) GROUPON Discount Vouchers: PLEASE SKIP TO SECTION (4) IF YOU HAVE A 'LOVE' VOUCHER WITH PRIORITY BOOKING!! :) **Groupon vouchers have a different/longer booking process to LOVE vouchers and more terms & conditions: groupon discount vouchers are great value for our clients, but the booking process is different/longer and there are more t&c's because you've bought from a third party - Groupon keep the money you paid, but we're very happy as we use their service as advertising to fill any spaces in our diary with lots more lovely new families! We get lots of registrations every day, and we naturally prioritise those bought from us direct - so this means if you need specific dates, or you need a shoot asap, then you need to buy one of our LOVE vouchers (not Groupon) so you can benefit from Priority Booking! **Groupon deal is an 'intro offer' for NEW clients/families/participants only - so this means if any of you have been to us before, then you've already had an intro offer/free images, and need to book direct this time - but don't worry, our LOVE vouchers come with great offers too! Check with us to see if you're on the 'LOVEtrain' - if you are, you may qualify for a free shoot from us - let us know the name you booked under, and when you came, and we'll let you know :) **Groupon deals are for full family/household only - this is our 'FamilyFun!' style shoot (see above) and so needs all the immediate family to participate in the fun! Parents (or single parent) are integral to the familyfun! and are required to participate in the shoot for this offer to be valid. Must include (human) child/children, not just pets. (Other vouchers are available for most other shoot types - see 'Buy A Voucher' page for details). **Groupon deals are for family groups of up to 6pple and 2 pets. You can add extended family members +£10pp (payable in cash on your shoot day), up to 12 people maximum (our studio is not designed for bigger groups than this). **Groupon vouchers are valid for 3 months & you need to register at least 6 weeks before expiry date to guarantee availability. The nearer the expiry date, the fewer spaces there will be, but we will always offer you what we have - as long as you are flexible on dates, you'll be fine :) **Shoot and Viewing BOTH need to be completed by the expiry date so booking well in advance is essential. Once your voucher has expired, it is no longer valid and the free images can't be claimed. If you only have a week (or less) before your voucher expires, then it sadly is too late to book you in, and we'd recommend you contact Groupon to request a refund/credit as soon as you can! **Groupon voucher is purchased from Groupon at their set rate of £12. We have no control over the amount they set, or any of the wording on the deal itself, as the voucher is a Groupon product, not our own. Groupon keep all of the £12 (this is the case with all photography deals) and in return we get lots of new families to fill in all the spaces in our diary! So this does mean if you need a refund, then you would need to contact Groupon direct, as they have all of the money and so need to be the ones to refund you. **Groupon deals are one per family/shoot and cannot be combined. **Groupon vouchers have no monetary value, and cannot be offered as raffle prizes or sold on/transferred. **there is a package included in the Groupon deal (which was decided by Groupon when we signed with them 9 years ago) this is: 3 images on CD (low res, printable max 10x8"), one needs to be of full family. Choose one of these 3 images to be printed: three at 10x8" or six at 7x5". This package has no equivalent value, as we do not sell this package. All additional purchases are made from our Viewing Guides, which we give on the day of your shoot - but we will happily send it sooner on request. **You are under no obligation to purchase anything extra, but we would strongly advise against booking if you know you only ever want three images, no matter how much you love more than three! We spend a long time on each family, and dedicate lots of energy to capturing moments, so you will come and see lots of lovely moments! You don't need to spend a fortune, some families only buy a few extra images due to budget, but please do come with some budget so we can help you keep more memories! It's just too sad for clients (and for us) when we have to delete everything, especially as our prices start as low as £35 for a single beautiful gallery mounted print, and our packages of digital and print are such great value too. **Occasionally we do have families that stick with the offer, even though we would have offered all sorts of ways of helping them keep more images, in these (fortunately rare) occasions that's sad, but we do understand that some folks will only ever want just the offer, that's just the gamble we take :) To safeguard our survival as a small family business (and so we can keep paying the studio rent!), we have had to introduce a rule that we can't offer another special offer shoot/voucher for families that haven't purchased any extras, so the next shoot would be full price, with no free images. **As a thank you for ordering more though, we will add a free gallery mounted print (worth £35) to your order! If you order £350+ then we'll upgrade your groupon images to High Res and give you a larger Gallery Mounted print (worth £75!) as a big LOVE thank you :)
4) LOVE vouchers: **these come with free Priority Booking as a thank you for buying direct from us! This means we call you first (before any Groupon registrations) so you get your pick of dates and times - very important if you are a busy family and limited on the dates you can do! You can even check with us in advance if your preferred date is available, and we'll hold it for you for 24hrs to give you time to buy and register your voucher! Please note this is only available when you buy from us direct (not Groupon). **LOVE vouchers also currently come with free Fast Track production (usually +£50) which means your order will be edited and ready to collect just 2-3 weeks after your viewing/payment, instead of our standard 4-6weeks. **LOVE vouchers also come with more options and flexibility - including a free gift voucher to spend at your viewing, as well as free images! It's worth checking them out, even if you have a Groupon, as quite often families have chosen to get a refund/credit from Groupon and bought a LOVE voucher instead! Once you have booked, it is too late to change offers, so please make sure you've had a good look first to make sure :) **all LOVE vouchers have different t&c's specific to their shoot type - please check the voucher online to find out what they are for yours
5) 7-Day Cancellation/Rescheduling Policy: When you book with us, our studio is reserved just for your family's use (for shoot or viewing). We are just a small business, and the costs of our studio rent/rates are very high (£1500pw) - this means every booking counts, and we need to be fully booked! For this reason, there is an automatic £25 charge for any missed appointment or any appointment rescheduled at short notice (less than 7 days) which results in our studio being empty. With more than seven days notice, we'll easily be able to find another family to book in, so there will be no charge. With less than seven days notice this becomes unlikely - but we will still try, and if we do find a family to fill your booking, then there will be no charge. If you are unable to make an appt (shoot or viewing) due to illness, then please let us know with as much notice as you can, and we will be happy to credit the £25 charge towards any order you place over £150 at your viewing. **To cover this short notice cancellation/rescheduling policy, we require your card details before we can confirm any booking. These will be kept securely (and separately from your other details, in compliance with GDPR regulations) and will be destroyed safely after your viewing appt. If you don't want to give card details, then we can accept £25 via bank transfer instead - let us know and we'll email you our bank details. If we don't need to make the charge, then this will be refunded to you (minus card merchant fees) or credited towards your order at Viewing. **We cannot make any booking at our studio without card details (or £25 held in our bank), but please rest assured we will not charge anything at all if you reschedule with more than 7 days notice, and even then - if we can fill your appt with another family, then there will be no charge, so please give us as much notice as you can. **Notice is required via email to enquiries@welovephotography.com with 'Appointment Reschedule' as the subject, and your email will be confirmed on receipt - if you don't receive a confirmation email within 1 hour, you need to contact us as this means we have not received your email and still eligible for the charge. Any questions at all, please register your voucher as normal, but tick the box saying you have questions, and we'll be happy to discuss when we call to book you in :)
6) Studio Availability: We are often out on location shoots, so our studio is open by appointment only, and available for booking weds-sun. Weekend bookings are reserved for FamilyFun! photoshoots (Groupon, LOVEfamily or bigLOVE vouchers) so all the family can join in. All other types of shoot are weekday only (weds-fri). Shoot and Viewing needs to be completed by your voucher expiry date in order to claim any free images in your booking offer so we recommend registering your voucher at least 6 weeks before expiry to guarantee availability (and even earlier if you need a weekend or school holiday).
8) Studio Viewing: this is such an important part of your experience with us, when you'll see all the hard work Caroline has put in to editing all your best moments and transforming them into our unique style of portrait art! With a studio viewing, we can help advise you on the best options for what you need, and also give you so many more special offer packages than we could online! We no longer offer a studio viewing for just one parent (unless single parent), because it needs to be an experience shared together - so many of the best moments captured are candid/inbetween moments that you won't even know were taken until the viewing! These are so often the most loved images (and the most treasured over the years) - and you can never explain to your partner how much you love them unless they see them too! Plus, it's just a lovely part of the whole family experience - bring the kids and snacks, and enjoy it all together!
9) Copyright and Usage: all images taken by LOVEphotography are owned by LOVEphotography. As such we are able to display them in our own studio, but we may request permission to also be able to use them external to our studio (either online or in exhibitions or in print, or in the windows). Since photographs are our 'product' then the success of our business completely relies on us being able to show images we are particularly proud of. For this reason, if we request use of your images, and you agree - we are now giving you a free gift as a thank you! **It should go without saying, but sadly we have now had 2 instances of image theft where clients have photographed images from the screen at their viewing, and used them on social media. So we are saying it here so it's clear - no copies of our images are permitted, and should any copies be made this is legally considered to be theft and we are obliged to report it. Please respect the time we take and the care we put into our work, and don't steal it :) **All images you purchase are copies for personal/non-commercial use only. If you or anyone you know wants to use them for promo/commercial, they must ask us in advance as a different Licence is required. If images are used commercially without written permission, we will send an invoice as the company/individual has been benefitting financially from our work without payment to us. If they ask in advance, then we will most likely agree to a cross-promotion instead of payment, especially if they are an independent business too!
11) Respect and Kindness Policy: sadly, we occasionally experience rude, aggressive & ignorant behaviour from our clients, and it is with regret that we now have to add this note that this will no longer be tolerated at ANY time, either in person or on the phone/email. We are welcoming you into our studio, and spending a great deal of time with you and your family and lots of care and attention goes into creating a Fun experience for you all, and capturing unique moments for you, and all the editing of your images. This is at least three hours of our time dedicated to you and your family. We love what we do, this is why we made it our business, but we no longer want to spend this amount of time and care on people who are disrespectful, rude or aggressive towards any of our staff. We are no longer willing to suffer any rudeness, shouting or disrespectful behaviour, and any such behaviour will mean you will be immediately asked to leave the studio, and forfeit your voucher and any accompanying service or gift package. This also includes bookings calls - please remember that the person on the other end of the phone that you are shouting at/over is a human being too (and most likely your photographer!). We can only offer you the spaces we have, and it is not our fault if the times you have free are not the same as ours. It is also not our fault that you didn't leave a message on our voicemail, so we didn't know you'd called, or you left ten messages but they were all on our day off (as explained in our voicemail message). Please folks, we are nice people, we photograph families, children and pets, we're all about peace and LOVE, but it's never ok to bully, and sadly we will now have to refuse service should this occur, without exception. Happily this is only a tiny percentage of the people we meet, so we would like to lighten this note by saying a big LOVE thank you to all you other 99% <3 xxxxx
Thank you for reading our policies! We're sorry it takes so long, but after nine years we have learnt such a lot, and we now try to prevent any confusion or issues before they arise! If you are in any doubt over anything at all, please get in touch - we're very happy to help!
Best wishes and bigLOVE from Caroline and Karl of LOVEphotography Xx