I’m not even sure where to start with this. First off, I know that there is nothing that can be done now that my wedding has passed. I know that my only options would be a reshoot or try to get some money back.
So let me start out by saying that I really thought I did a good job finding a photographer. I actually think that I spent more time trying to find a good photographer over the amount fo time we spent trying to find a venue. After conversations with many photographers- I finally picked the company I went with. I loved their style and all of the work I vetted. I ended up booking the top package they offered to ensure the owners would shoot my wedding.
Fast forward to about 9 months out from our wedding, we had our engagement shoot. We loved the pictures that we got and were excited for them to shoot our wedding.
Now fast forward to a few months before the wedding. We were contacted that the company no longer offers our package but that they were going to honor it. I double checked to make sure the owners would be shooting our wedding day and was ensured this would be the case…
fast forward to wedding day. They were a mess. As the bride, I had to go behind them to make sure they were getting the shots that they were told about ahead of time!! For instance, one shot I really wanted was of my dress hanging up. I knew they hadn’t gotten it as my dress was in the same spot as I put it in the morning and was in the closet so it hadn’t been moved. That was frustrating because shouldn’t a bride be able to enjoy her morning and not have to check that the vendors were doing their jobs???
Then we get to the ceremony… Things seemed fine until after family photos when we were casually told “The second photographer is going to take over and that they were leaving for the day”… I was baffled. Like what the hell do you mean? This isn’t the package I got. So we had to go to an indoor location about 12 mins or so from the ceremony as it was an outdoor ceremony and it rained on our day. Well months in advance their was a back up rain plan communicated. Well this was apparently not relayed very well with the second photographer as it took them 20 mins to find parking even though they left 15 mins before us to get there and get set up. So we beat them there and then waited 20 mins for them to even get parked so we missed out on a good 20 mins of pics. Well, this is where things really went downhill. The second photographer's style was NOTHING like the owners I booked with. Our pics the second half of our day were crap. They posed us in spots where they said the lighting would be good but when we got the photos back they were awful. The pics with our bridal party looked awful. We have ONE I MEAN ONE good bridal party picture where everyone is actually looking!!! I have one good pic with the bridesmaids and thats it too!!! The pics of my husband solo- I also couldn’t believe. They had him pop his foot like a girl and it looks so bad. The pics they took at our reception sucked and they were MIA half the time.
We even got our photos back and they edit a certain amount… No edited photos of our first kiss our aisle dip… But there was one of the photographers with our dog!!!
I am in complete disbelief. The pics they continue to post on their facebook page are nothing like the wedding the shot for us… I think the point of this is to get some advice or compassion from other brides who have experienced photography messes as I have been ruminating now on this going on over 9 weeks every day and it has been eating me up. Any advice is appreciated.