Wedding Photography And Intellectual Property

Location: Maryland, United States

Hello all, I want to start off by saying this question is one hundred percent purely a question of curiosity. I have no desire or intention of pursuing legal action. I just had a situation where I was curious about how intellectual property law might work.

So I recently took some photographs with a film camera at a wedding, in an unofficial capacity. I'm close with the married couple, and asked ahead of time if they would be okay with me taking photos at the wedding, they said yes. I have a public-facing instagram account where I posted the photos a few weeks after the wedding, but did not include any identifying information about the couple. They were okay with me posting the photos.

The bride and groom each posted the photos to their respective instagram stories, and the photographer they paid to take photos at their wedding reminded them that there was a clause in the contract that nobody else at the wedding was allowed to take photos with anything more than a phone camera, and the photos I took need to come down. I removed them from instagram immediately.

I'm not interested in making a big intellectual property battle over a few simple photos, but I did not enter any such contract with the paid photographer, was not informed of that clause in their contract, and am curious how people in intellectual property law would view this case, as I don't really believe the photographer, even with that clause in the contract, has any real standing to tell me what to do with my own creative work.

Thanks!