Photographer deletes friend's wedding photos right in front of him after he denies them a break

A dog groomer and part-time amateur photographer recently shared yet another wedding horror story on the r/AmItheAsshole forum after they did something drastic in retaliation to the groom's inhumane attitude. In a post titled "AITA for deleting my friend's wedding photos in front of them?" Reddit user Icy-Reserve6995 asked whether they might've gone a step too far by deleting their friends' wedding photographs right in front of their eyes in response to the way the groom treated them. The Redditor recounted how they'd been coerced into accepting the job as a favor to their friends who were on a tight budget, only to be treated horribly on the day of the event.

"I'm not really a photographer, I'm a dog groomer. I take lots of photos of dogs all day to put on my Facebook and Instagram, it's 'my thing' if that makes sense. A cut and a photo with every appointment. I very seldom shoot things other than dogs even if I have a nice setup," the Redditor explained. "A friend got married a few days ago and wanting to save money, asked if I'd shoot it for them. I told him it's not really my forte but he convinced me by saying he didn't care if they were perfect: they were on a shoestring budget and I agreed to shoot it for $250, which is nothing for a 10-hour event."

"On the day of, I'm driving around following the bride as she goes from appointment to appointment before the ceremony, taking photos along the way. I shoot the ceremony itself, and during the reception, I'm shooting speeches and people mingling. I started around 11 a.m. and was due to finish around 7:30 p.m.," they recounted. Despite going out of their way to make the event perfect for their friends, at around 5 p.m. that day, the photographer realized that the wedding couple had some extremely unreasonable expectations from them.

"Around 5 p.m., food is being served and I was told I cannot stop to eat because I need to be a photographer; in fact, they didn't save me a spot at any table. I'm getting tired and at this point kinda regretting doing this for next to nothing. It's also unbelievably hot: the venue is in an old veteran's legion and it's like 110F and there's no AC," the Redditor explained. Thirsty, hungry, and tired from running around all day, they told the groom they desperately needed a break.

"I told the groom I need to take off for 20 minutes to get something to eat and drink. There's no open bar or anything, I can't even get water and my two water bottles are long empty. He tells me I need to either be a photographer or leave without pay," they revealed. However, the groom did not see how his lack of empathy would backfire on him. "With the heat, being hungry, being generally annoyed at the circumstances, I asked if he was sure, and he said yes, so I deleted all the photos I took in front of him and took off saying I'm not his photographer anymore. If I was to be paid $250, honestly at that point I would have paid $250 just for a glass of cold water and somewhere to sit for 5 minutes," the Redditor explained.

"Was I the asshole?" they asked fellow Reddit users. "They went right on their honeymoon and they've all been off of social media, but a lot of people have been posting on their wall asking about photos with zero responses." The r/AmItheAsshole community ultimately voted that the poster was not in the wrong for how they reacted. "NTA at all. You could have risked your health and they treated you like sh*t," wrote u/mon0chrom. "Like they seriously expected [the photographer] to work for 8.5 hours without food, with little water and no break. While let's be honest, [the photographer] was doing this as a favor and not cause of the money. How did they think this would go. OP should tell their side before they come back. They're going to spin this to make OP sound evil," commented u/Tanooki07.