Missouri consumer writes:

Help!! I have paid my wedding photographer in full and she has not delivered my order after 5 long months. She said she has filed bankruptcy and there is nothing I can do to recover my order or money. Is there anything I can do to recover the $1700+ dollars I have already paid to her?

You can file a consumer complaint with our office. This is a widespread problem. We settled a similar case against a photography studio earlier this year. And a check of our consumer complaint database for the word "wedding" shows 700 complaints - and about half of them are on this very topic.

One of our consumer rules to live by is not paying in advance for things you haven't received yet.