Wedding Photos Civil Suit

Tldr; had a wedding in FL in 2024, paid photographer, photos were bad, he offered to remake and has missed his deadlines over and over. He took away access to my photos after I complained and never sent the USB that was promised in the contract. I don't have my photos even though I paid. Do I have standing to sue?

Notes: I'm from Florida, and the wedding was in Florida, and the photographer is from Georgia

Hey Reddit,

First time post and I'm posting on mobile, so sorry for any format issues. I am sorry it's long, but I want to be as thorough and honest as possible.

I got married in March of 2024, and I hired a photographer from Georgia who offered a great rate and was willing to be super accommodating. We loved his photos that we found online and all of his reviews on Google are 5 stars. On the day of the wedding it was great and we were super excited. We got the raw photos on our honeymoon and they were a little rough but we were optimistic that he would edit them and that would make them better.

The first red flag came when the agreed upon completion date (90 BUSINESS days) came and there were no photos. We waited until the end of the week then reached out and they apologized and said there would be a delay. I was foolish and did not read my contract thoroughly and it said they have 5 business days to inform me of a delay, and I emailed them on the 5th business day not realizing this, but oh well.

Then the photos came in. And reddit, I understand that everyone has different tastes and creative ideas, but these photos were awful. He somehow made the raw photos look better. They were terrible. I sent them over to my friend who is also a professional photographer (he was in my wedding, though now I wish I just had him take the photos instead), and he was as appalled as we were. We're an interracial couple, and the photographer somehow made my very Mexican wife look as pale as me. Everything was washed out, over exposed, and a lot of the photos emphasized the location of the wedding rather than the people in it (ex. Editing the lighting outside to make the grass/trees/sky look pretty, but then washing out the subjects of the photos). He is even told us that was his thought process when we brought this up to him. This was appalling to us because we specifically asked them to keep in mind that my wife is brown and I am not and we don't want her to look pale. He also sent almost 1000 edited photos, which was nice, but maybe 200 of them were actually usable, and out of those 200, they were almost all edited very poorly. When all was said and done, we liked maybe 5 photos and saved them from the cloud drive he sent us.

We brought our complaints to him and he offered to remak the photos in September. He also took away the cloud drive from us, so we didn't have access to the photos, and he never sent us the USB drive promised in the contract, so with all said and done, we have like 10 photos.

I would also like to note that I didn't sign a second contract, he just agreed to remake them over text, which looking back was bad on my part, but also I've never hired a photographer before and never sued anyone before so I didn't know.

It is now February. I have texted him asking him for updates and every time he gives me a new deadline, which comes and goes. It was "the end of the year. (2024)," then "by the second week of January," then "by the end of January." My last text was last week and he said "By the end of the week." No photos.

(His excuse for the delay is that he had back surgery, and I have been super patient and understanding of that)

I'm tired... The contract says I can't sue due to "creative differences," but at this point I don't even have my photos. I don't want my money back and I don't want to sue this guy, I just want my photos. But I'm done trying to be patient and give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Do I have any standing in suing this guy? I know my next step is sending a demand letter by certified mail, but I don't want to fight this if I'm going to lose by some technicality.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.

Quick edit:

I would sue him for the money I spent for his services and legal fees. The demand letter I send would basically say "Give me the photos or refund me the money by x date or I'll sue you for the amount I paid you plus legal fees."