Tom, your reply is very well explained and it tells a lot about how professional you are at work. It was not the subject of discussion in my reply.
With my long post I just wanted to point out that you have to be professional, but you have to look like one too. The woman I talked about didn't seem to be -in my opinion-, and therefore i couldn't trust in her for such an unique opportunity. The man looked more professional, because even when it doesn't take so long to get the equipment ready, the first thing he told me was that as I was calling him out of the yellow pages and I didn't have any reference of him, so he rather don't get the job than I get disappointed when it was too late. I simply told him that I was on a dead road, so if he was making his living out of photography it was enough for me. The pictures turned out well, but who knows if the woman would have had taken better shots? Nobody knows and actually I don't care much, I just wanted to have some pictures of the ceremony for when my son grows old. I have the ceremony in my brain camera.
Long story short Tom. If you were early before the wedding that's something the bride doesn't know and doesn't really care. If you couldn't meet the deadline due to personal reasons it's something that a customer really don't care about though can understand when explained. Maybe she got nervous and/or impatient because of the delay. You know that weddings are, specially for women, the BIG day for them. They diet, buy an expensive dress, get an expensive hairdress, make-up, in short everything must be perfect that day, and the pictures are the proof of that.
There has always been hard-to-deal-with customers, but 99% can be succesufully dealt of with a little politeness and a couple of big smiles. That's what I asked you, if you think there could have been a way to avoid the trial in such a way that both parties end up without feeling to have had given up in their money, rights or self steem.
Good luck in court. In my opinion, the best way to win a lawsuit is not to have one. This doesn't mean I will accept any kind of threat or insult in order to avoid a lawsuit, but if it's no big deal I rather reach an agreement, learn the lesson and get on with my life.
Raul
