I'm not saying it's what happened in this case, but wow, wedding photography would be a fabulous idea for a swindle!
Most people I know tried to arrange everything for their weddings 6 months to a year in advance, sometimes more, and apparently many people are willing to pay up front in return for a discount.
Also, most people don't expect a wedding photographer to have an expensive place of business. Probably all you'd need to convince people you were legit would be some letterheads and business cards (inexpensive) and an impressive website, which you could populate with content stolen from legitimate wedding photographers' websites.
So if you set up a con-job "wedding photography" business and didn't accept any bookings for less than 6 months in advance, you'd have that whole six months to rake in payments before you had to perform ANY services! Then you'd simply disappear with the money.
If you were able to con, say, 500 couples at $3,000 per wedding, you could clear one and a half million dollars, less a few trivial expenses. Then you'd just set up shop in another part of the country and start the scam again.
Wow, good thing I'm an honest guy...