A woman broke down in tears as she told a judge how a photographer she paid to record her wedding took the money and the pictures and ran.
Daphne Byrne, Harmonstown Road, Artane, Dublin, told the Circuit Civil Court yesterday that wedding photographer Eoghan O’Sullivan had promised to provide her and her husband, John Byrne, with a CD-rom disc and album.
“We never saw him again,” she told Circuit Court president Mr Justice Raymond Groarke. “We got one of two snaps that were disgraceful. In one of them I looked as if I had no teeth.”
Amy O’Donoghue, for Ms Byrne, said O’Sullivan, Highlands, Drogheda, Co Louth, seemed to have disappeared and would not answer phone calls or reply to emails. He still maintained a website which referred inquiries to link after link after link.
Ms Byrne said they got married on July 7th last year. More than 30 relatives had travelled from abroad and she did not have a single picture of any of them, let alone one with her husband. She had paid O’Sullivan €680 up front and now had to plan a small family “wedding party” where some pictures of the couple’s lost big day could be staged. Many of the guests who had travelled could not afford to attend again.
Ms O’Donoghue told the court it had been estimated that between €700 and €1,000 would be required to have proper professional pictures taken at the planned wedding reception number two.
Mr Justice Groarke said Mr O’Sullivan could only be described as a gangster. He awarded Ms Byrne €680 special damages and €7,000 damages for upset, distress, loss and inconvenience.