Few things create family drama faster than mixing business with personal milestones.

This new dad and his wife recently welcomed their first child and decided to celebrate one of those classic new-parent moments: newborn photos. Wanting a polished, studio-style experience, they hired a professional photographer and paid around $300 for the session. Naturally, they were excited about it and shared some behind-the-scenes photos online.

That’s when OP’s sister-in-law reached out with a complaint. She has been trying to build a photography business over the past year and was upset that they hadn’t hired her instead. On the surface, it might seem like a fair question. After all, many families try to support relatives’ side businesses whenever possible.

The complication is that OP and his wife have supported her business before. They previously paid her to take maternity photos, but they weren’t thrilled with the results. On top of that, newborn photography isn’t even one of her specialties, making the decision feel less personal and more practical.

AITAH for not using my SIL’s “photography” business to take my newborn photos?

My wife and I just had our first baby. We are excited to get to do all of the first things like taking newborn photos.

We hired a professional photographer to take them and paid her $300. Again, we were excited to share them, so we posted some behind the scenes photos to social media.

My SIL texted us about how rude it was that we didn’t ask her to take our newborn photos.

Uhhh, what?

For some context, my SIL has been trying to get her small photography business up and running for about a year. She mainly shoots couples, families, or graduation portraits, never newborns.

We try to support her. We repost her business on our social media and even paid her about $100 to take some maternity couples photos for us because she insisted she needed more photos for her business portfolio, but we honestly did not love them.

She didn’t edit any of the people out of the background. She just edited the lighting, exposure, and focus in the Photos app and called it good. If that’s the style her clients are looking for, all the better for them. It’s just not, what we wanted.

Can’t book someone you don’t like, right?

She doesn’t use a professional camera. She uses her iPhone 16 in Portrait mode and whatever settings on there.

I’m not saying she needs the most fanciest equipment but she doesn’t even use any editing apps. Just whatever editing stuff you get in the iPhone photos editor.

So going back to it, we explained we wanted professional photos to be taken like what we had gotten done in the studio. She claimed she could’ve done all that for half of the cost.

Yeah well, you get what you pay for.

We told her she didn’t have any of the stuff that the photographer had (props, swaddles, backdrops, baby blankets and pillows to prop him).

We also stated, the fact that she doesn’t typically photograph newborns so we didn’t know if she would even be interested.

She said we could’ve used what we had and bought the rest. If we bought the rest of the materials, it would’ve probably been the same cost as our photographer originally.

No thank you.

We offered if she would like to build her portfolio, she can use our baby to take some newborn photos.

She claims that we are offering out of pity and we are being unsupportive of her small business.

AITAH?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who rejects a low contract offer and leaves the company instead.

Reddit overwhelmingly voted NTA, with many commenters pointing out that supporting a family member’s business doesn’t obligate you to use them for every service they offer. Several noted that newborn photography is a highly specialized niche that often requires specific equipment, props, posing knowledge, and experience working safely with infants.

Many readers also felt OP and his wife had already gone out of their way to support the business by hiring her for maternity photos, promoting her work on social media, and even offering to let her photograph their baby for portfolio-building purposes. The fact that she interpreted that offer as an insult rather than an opportunity made commenters even less sympathetic to her position.

The overall consensus was that family members are not entitled to paying customers simply because they’re related. If someone is charging for a professional service, clients are allowed to choose the person whose style, experience, and results best match what they’re looking for.

This person had to laugh.

This person says these pics are WAY too important to use someone medicore.

And this person says she has to invest to be taken seriously. SORRY NOT SORRY.

Supporting a small business doesn’t mean volunteering your newborn to be a practice run.