AITA for not letting my caterer take pictures of her work for social media?
I recently hosted a milestone birthday at my home, and had a local caterer create a grazing table spread for the celebration. After she set it up, I noticed that she was taking photos of the spread. While I understand why she wanted to promote her work on social media, I didn’t feel comfortable with her photos. Not only was my home pretty visible in the photos, but as part of the table decorations, my husband had set up lots of family photos that were visible between all of the dishes. Due to the layout of the decorations, there was no way the photos could be avoided in any pictures.
I kindly asked her to not take photos, and to her credit she did stop. But there was definitely a lot of tension and and she left quickly in a bit of a huff. A few hours later, she sent me an email saying that taking photos of her work when she was finished was normal, and that she thought I had acted unprofessionally. She also said that I was impacting her ability to get clients by preventing her from using the photos on social media.
I told her that we paid her in full for the work, and she had never discussed taking pictures of the spread. I also explained that her photos clearly captured personal family photos which violated my privacy. She only responded by saying that it was no different than if someone took a picture of me in a public space. I begged to differ because it’s not like a stranger would have burst into the delivery room to take pictures of giving birth to my first daughter!
My friend heard about the exchange (I was venting a little at a dinner with my girlfriends), and she said that she understood where the caterer was coming from, and that her daughter also relies on social media for clients for her business.
The table was kind of split, and I guess I wanted an unbiased opinion on whether or not I was being too sensitive about the whole thing. I appreciate any feedback!