Baby's First Year Plan

(WARNING: Whiny rambling rant ahead).

This is for all you new parents out there. Don't get suckered into a "Baby's First Year" photo plan that sounds too good to be true.

When we were visiting pediatricians, before R was born and we were trying to decide which one to use, we saw that this one photographer had his photos on display in the office, along with a brochure advertising his "Baby's First Year" photo plan. You got 5 photo shoots (newborn, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months) plus a framed panel photo with one 3, 6, 9, and 12 month photo displayed in a row, all for $49.99 and no obligation or pressure to buy anything else. I thought it sounded great, so I signed R up after she was born. J was a little skeptical, but I was so excited I didn't want to think everything through.

Of course, though, there was a catch. We learned this the hard way when J went to pick up the proofs from the newborn shoot to bring home for everyone to see, and found out that there was a $195 non-refundable deposit to take the proof book home to look at. Yes, $195 to look at the proof book for a week and decide which photos you wanted to buy. Then, when you ordered photos, the $195 got applied to your order. So basically, you commit to ordering $195 worth of photos just by taking time to think about which pictures you want. And the proof book was just images printed out on regular printer paper--not actual proofs printed on picture paper--so why he needed the $195 fee is beyond me, other than to try and drum up sales.

So we sucked it up and ordered more newborn photos than we would have otherwise (and it worked out really well because I loved our birth announcement photos, which we pretty much only ordered because we had already spent that money on the proof book). But we'd learned our lesson. For the subsequent shoots, I made appointments to go in to the photographer's office and view the proofs in person to choose the one I wanted them to use for the final panel because this was the only way to avoid the $195 fee.

I diligently did this, despite grumbling every single time about how much freaking money this guy charges for prints (for example, he charges $70 for one 5x7; the price goes down to about $45 if you get the 5x7 in addition to a package, but the cheapest package is in the neighborhood of $350). So as you can imagine, J and I did not order any more pictures. But I was darned if I was going to miss out on getting this panel after I'd already paid this guy all this money. Grr. You can see above the proof he emailed us of the panel. It's really cute and I'm glad to have it, but I've definitely learned my lesson.

So. Don't get suckered. Even if the deal sounds great--and I do think $50 for 5 photo shoots and a framed photo is an okay price (for comparison, a photo session costs $14.99 at Sears, although you can almost always find a coupon that waives the session fee)--it really sucked to feel like we couldn't order any prints from any of the sessions because we couldn't justify his prices.

To be fair, the photographer kind of redeemed himself in my eyes a teensy little bit because he sent R a birthday card before her 1-year photo session and offered 24 free wallets if we brought the card in when we ordered photos. I brought the card in, not really expecting to get 24 free wallets if we didn't order any other photos, but sure enough, we got them! He did stick to his promise that there would never be any pressure from him or his employees to purchase prints.

The moral of the story though is to be careful when signing up for these things. They can be great deals, but be sure you know what you're willing to pay before going into it. If you think you'll want more photos than just whatever comes with your plan, check into the print prices. Otherwise, you might be better off going to Sears or Target or staging your own photo shoots at home.

ADDED: When J read this post, his reaction was that this is the kind of thing that most normal people would see coming a mile away. It's just me who didn't anticipate these issues. Oh well.