A retainer is typically a non-refundable payment made as part of a session's booking confirmation. Your photographer asks for this in exchange for them reserving their services for your specific date—meaning they're 100% yours! You have the peace of mind that they can't book anyone else.  But that also means the same on their end! If you reschedule or cancel your original session date, we lose out on business. We typically take into account editing times while scheduling sessions, especially weddings or elopements, so a last-minute reschedule or cancellation can really mess with the way we run our business.