Wedding photographer claims hard drive failed and ALL photos from our wedding are gone - what are our legal options?

We got married on October 12th. Paid our photographer $4,500 for full-day coverage, engagement shoot (which we received), and an album. Two weeks after the wedding, she emails saying her hard drive crashed and all photos from our wedding day are "unrecoverable." She's offering a full refund of the $4,500.

We're devastated. My grandmother flew in from Portugal - she's 89 and this was likely our last major family event with her. My father-in-law has terminal cancer and we wanted these photos desperately. We can't recreate this day.

Is a refund really all we can get? Feels like we should be entitled to more. The engagement photos were nice but we NEEDED the wedding photos. This feels like gross negligence - what professional photographer doesn't have backups?

We're in California.

Ngl thank you for sharing this entire journey. I'm getting married in April and this thread convinced me to specifically ask my photographer about backup procedures before signing. Turns out he shoots to dual cards + cloud upload same-day + two external drives. That's what I want to hear! So glad you got your photos back.