An Indian-American surgeon from New Jersey is demanding a refund of $27,000 from a noted photographer after firing him right before his daughter’s wedding. The reason — last-minute demands.
Dr Amit Patel, 59, claimed in a lawsuit that celebrated shutterbug Clane Gessel he had originally hired began making eleventh-hour demands. He then had to scramble to find another professional to take pictures as daughter Anisha, 28, married Arjun Mehta in Turkey. The four-day celebration took 13 custom outfits for the bride, included 250 guests, a year of planning and a feature in Vogue.
Speaking with New York Post, Patel said it was the first wedding in the family “in a long time,” said Patel, adding that the bill was “a good six-figure number.” But it was almost a disaster because of Gessel.
“It’s panic. You can imagine telling your daughter a few days before her wedding that the photographer she selected, he’s not coming,” Patel told the publication.
According to the New York Post, Gessel and his namesake studio agreed in writing that he would be the “main photographer” at each of the wedding’s multiple events and that he and his team would stay at a different hotel than where the events would take place, a luxury hotel.
Gessel allegedly sent an email to Patel when the father of the bride was waiting to board a plane to Turkey that Gessel would “decide who is shooting what and when,” and demanded to be booked into the same luxury hotel where the wedding was to take place.
