Being a commercial photographer, with a decent understanding of copyright, releases, and work for hire, since we negotiate contacts on a weekly basis, here are my opinions;
Rarely does the bride/groom (or contracting party) receive ownership from the photographer unless stated so in an agreement/contract. Absent of a contract to state otherwise, the ownership of the copyright belongs to the creator, that being the photographer in this instance.
Further, photographer/client relationships are rarely ever seen as employer/employee relationships. Work for hire agreements need to be in writing, and/or the employer/employee relationships need to meet several specific categories. Its doubtful that a bride/groom hiring a photographer would fall under those;
There are only two situations in which a work for hire can exist. They are: (1) a work created by an "independent contractor," and a (2) "work prepared by an employee" within the scope of her employment.
Works Created by Independent Contractors
For a work created by an independent contractor (or freelancer) to qualify as a work for hire, three specific conditions found in the Copyright Act must be meet:
1. the work must be "specially ordered" or "commissioned." What this means is the independent contractor is paid to create something new (as opposed to being paid for an already existing piece of work); and
2. prior to commencement of work, both parties must expressly agree in a signed document that the work shall be considered a work made for hire; and
3. the work must fall within at least one of the following nine narrow statutory categories of commissioned works list in the Copyright Act:
(1) a translation, (2) a contribution to a motion picture or other audiovisual work, (3) a contribution to a collective work (such as a magazine), (4) as an atlas, (5) as a compilation, (6) as an instructional text, (7) as a test, (8) as answer material for a test, (9) or a supplementary work (i.e., "a secondary adjunct to a work by another author" such as a foreword, afterword, chart, illustration, editorial note, bibliography, appendix and index).
If the bride/groom decided to state the photographer was an employee, they could expose themselves to other issues, such as not withholding appropriate taxes, state and federal filing requirements, labor law violations, etc, which makes this avenue a bumpy one.
One point that could be a good arguing point. Photographers usually have a clause in their contracts that allow them to use the images from the wedding for their self promotional use, ie website, brochures, advertising, etc. If you haven't signed anything, you haven't given them permission to use your likeness for commercial use.
In my opinion, your best course of action would be to work out a deal that is acceptable to both of you. Getting attorneys involved with only be expensive for both sides, and neither party will walk away from the experience with anything other than bad feelings. If you can use the lack of a release to help counter his arguments, perhaps you can both find some middle point to settle on.
