Duval County

Send Ben: 14-month wait ends for bride after COJ employee turns over wedding photos

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A local bride remembers her wedding day but for all the wrong reasons.

“I’ve been trying to get my wedding photos from a photographer,” Jen Spohn told Action News Jax Ben Becker. “I have been trying to contact him for over 14 months. My grandmother is 85 years old and she couldn’t be here because she lives in Pennsylvania. All she wants is the photos and all I want are the photos. I can’t replace any of that [because] we can’t do the day over.”

The photographer is also a City of Jacksonville employee but Action News Jax is not revealing his identity because he’s not facing any criminal charges.

“He’s been fully paid,” Spohn said. “He says he has the photos and has to upload [but] his computer crashed. We keep getting the run around.”

The receipt from December 2019 shows Spohn paid the man $750, but 14 months passed since the wedding and no pictures.

Spohn sent Becker a text from the photographer from January 2020 that said, “The images will be uploaded” and “the thumb drive can be picked up.”

Spohn responded with a text saying “yea that’s what I heard on November 4th after it had already been a year of waiting.”

The wait continued with this message Spohn received when clicking on the upload link: “you have nothing in your folder.”

Becker called the city department where the photographer works and was told he is allowed to have a side job but Becker pressed them to ask the man to hand over the pictures or Spohn’s money.

Not long after, the photographer sent a text to Spohn once again saying the pictures would be “…uploaded over the next few hours…” and “I am also sending this to my compliance officer,” adding “The thumb drive will be available to be picked up tomorrow by 8 am.”

This time Spohn finally received her treasured memories and magic moments of the happiest day of her life.

“Thanks for all your help getting our wedding photos back,” Spohn said in a video message to Becker. “It feels amazing to finally have them for my family.”

Becker made a request through the city department where the photographer works to get a comment but the man declined.