A Bundaberg couple has lost their wedding day photos, after a friend who photographed their big day had her camera gear stolen from her car during the reception.
Sally-Ann and Cameron Dewbery recruited their photographer friend, Ashlee Meskin, to capture the candid wedding shots.
Once the reception kicked off and things loosened up, the newlyweds told Meskin to put the camera away and enjoy the rest of her night.
Meskin left the camera with the memory cards in the back of her Jeep, which has a soft canvasback cargo liner. The thieves ripped the liner open and stole the camera gear, containing all the wedding photos.
‘I felt devastated, I cried a lot. It was horrible. It took me from Cloud Nine to the bottom in 20 seconds,’ Sally-Ann Dewbery told Seven News just days after the wedding.
‘We were so flat yesterday, we couldn’t bring ourselves to do anything,’ added Cameron Bewbery.
The Dewbery’s say they only have a few grainy smartphone happy snaps. There’s no photos of the bridal party, bridesmaids getting ready – it’s all gone.
The newlyweds and Meskin are pleading for the thieves to return the memory card, and are offering a reward to have the photos back. A crowdfunding page has been set up to recreate the photos, but Sally-Ann accepts it’s not going to be the same.
Which kind of goes to underscore the risk of playing a dual role as wedding photographer and wedding guest!
They did hire a professional photographer not just ask a mate to wing it
I suspect not a professional, certainly not a very good one. One of my greatest mentors, a Melbourne photographer, taught me to treat your camera cards like gold, since they’re worth a lot more than that, until all files are backed up properly (at least x3 places, geo independent, etc). Grossly unprofessional to leave any assignment’s work in a car and not on their person, letalone to not be backing up right away after an event. But hey, just one of the reasons I left pro photography… the market doesn’t seem to care.