Wedding photographers hold RAW files hostage, delivering only 50 edited images

Most wedding photography contracts specify that the photographer retains all RAW image files and delivers only 50-200 edited JPEGs from a 3,000+ shot day, with no option to purchase the unedited files at any price. Couples who want different crops, edits, or prints years later are forced to go back to the original photographer or accept degraded JPEG re-edits. This matters because wedding photos are irreplaceable one-time documentation — you cannot reshoot the moment your father cried during his toast. The practice persists because photographers use RAW file retention as leverage for future print and album sales, and copyright law defaults ownership to the creator, so couples would need explicit contractual language most don't know to negotiate.