Vendor Review: An Update on my Photo Situation

Remember about a month ago when I shared this post about how let down we were by our photographer, Robert Mullins?  VENDOR LETDOWN POST

Well, here's the update on what has transpired since then:

1)  I talked to friends and family after hearing from all you lovely ladies.  Most of my family and friends agreed with my frustrations and feelings of disappointment...remember, we did in fact get some great shots from Robert...but what was most frustrating was the total lack of shots that we had requested that he missed out on.

2)  I then wrote a lengthy e-mail to Robert basically outlining everything I wrote in my post but also thanking him and praising him for some of the things we did like. I tried to be respectful and professional but also honest about my issues.  I posted some excerpts from the e-mail at the bottom of this post.

3)  He responded - a week later after I asked him if he received the e-mail - and basically blew me off!  He simply wrote this:

I deeply regret that you seem unsatisfied with your images. I think you are concentrating on every negative aspect you can find, instead of the much more numerous positive ones. No wedding, or wedding photographer, is perfect. A wedding is the interaction of people and events, the coverage must be judged as a whole, not piece by piece.


Looking at your coverage as a whole, I believe I have provided a professional job, worthy of the fee you have paid. I was up front and above board with you from the beginning. The images you were shown are an accurate reflection of my skills, and the images you have received are consistent with that. It is not fair for you to now compare individual images from your wedding with those by other photographers, when you do not know how, and under what circumstances those images were taken—not to mention, that you do not see the whole coverage. Am I to be held to the impossible standard that every image I took at your wedding must be the best ever taken?


I do not feel a refund of any amount is fair or reasonable.

4)  I responded back again with another e-mail (more excerpts below).  The thing that was most frustrating was that he basically blew me off and did not acknowledge one single thing I brought up...not even the legitimate concerns that I had regarding photos that were in our contract and were not taken nor provided.  Nor things like the Thank and You cards being covered up when he shot those photos.  Mr Fix It and I both agreed that we would have been satisfied if he would have at least said, "You know, you're right.  I didn't get that shot or that shot didn't turn out.  But it was because time got away from us or the camera broke or whatever."  Though I felt we deserved a refund of some sort due to lack of fulfilling the terms of the contract, at the very minimum, I expected to hear an apology and explanation that he agreed with some of our complaints.  But nope, he gave us nothing. 
 
And he never did respond to my second follow up e-mail either.  So I basically decided that I will hit the internet world (blogs, wedding websites, vendor reviews, etc) letting everyone know about our experience so that I can possibly affect his wallet since he doesn't give a rip about my own feelings or frustrations.
 
5)  We will most likely not be doing a day after shoot at our venue to get all the shots and locations we missed out on.  I really truly want to do this but we just cannot afford to pay another photographer about $500 to have this done and the only way Mr Fix It would agree to it was if we could get some kind of refund to help offset the cost. 
 
As a follow up to this, I do have some good news that came out of this:  Our videographer brought his wife along to our wedding day...she is an amateur photographer and they asked our photographer if he would mind if she 'shadowed' him to take photos and get some experience in.  Originally, I asked my videographer if he would provide me with the photos his wife shot that day.  He responded saying that he had to provide them to our photog, Robert to give to us since technically he was the hired photographer of the day.  So I waited until we got them back from Robert. 
 
When I noticed there were shots I had posed for that I did not receive from Robert, I mentioned some of my frustrations to our videographer.  I was especially hoping he got footage of things that Robert missed.  My amazing videographer, Gary, decided to send me the photos that his wife took along with our raw footage.  When I asked him why he did this after he said he couldn't, he responded that he felt we had a right to the shots.
 
Turns out, after looking through the few hundred shots that Gary's wife took, my stupid photographer did not provide me with ANY of the shots she took!  Not one!  And she got some dang good shots, too...even better ones than Robert in some cases.  She also got the ONLY shot I have of our entire reception room set up once all the decor had been put out.  Something Robert failed to do.  I put together our wedding album (a recap will share it with you in the future) and I swear probably 25% of the over 400 photos in the album came from our videographer's wife!
 
I have no idea why in the hell Robert decided not to give me ANY of the photos that she took.  But it only proves to me that he had a lot of other photos that were taken that he chose not to provide us with for one reason or another.
 
To sum this up, technically, I could sue him.  I could take him to court and fight for 1) a refund of some sort and 2) the photos he has that I know for a fact we didn't get.  And I have a leg to stand on since there were specific shots listed in our contract that he was to provide that he did not take nor provide us.  But do I really want to go through the hassle and headache and have to relive the frustrations of what was truly one of the best days of our lives?  I think not.  I'd rather move on and just be happy with what I do have - some great photos and an even greater husband!

And just to sum this up...I can't complain that we don't have anything.  We do in fact have a lot of great shots and once I laid them all out in an album, I realized that it's not like I don't have anything.  It's just unfortunate that some of the shots we were most looking forward to were overlooked, not taken and not provided.  Oh well, lessons learned will be shared in future recaps - I promise!

The biggest let down from our wedding: Need your advice

It has taken me a while to write this post.  And I honestly don't even know where to start.  Just thinking about sharing my frustrations and disappointment right now is making me nauseous and sad.  But I figure the best thing to do is to try to get it out honestly and then take it to you wonderful ladies and fellow brides-to-be or recently marrieds to tell me if I am off my rocker or not. 

So, I have had my professional photos back from my photographer for over a week now.  I shared a little sneak peek of the ones my photog posted on his blog here about 12 days ago.  The unfortunate thing is, I feel like the sneak peek he shared was the best of what we were going to get.  I received over 1000 photos from my photographer (something he repeatedly told me on the wedding day is 'way more than he usually takes at a wedding').  This surprises me because my sister got like 1300 pics from her wedding day and her photographer was there for three or four hours LESS than I booked mine!

Before, I start my reasons for my dismay, I'll share these photos from our photog with you.  I want to save a lot of them for my recaps (even though I feel like I don't have nearly what I was expecting to be able to share with you), but I'll give you a few to view for now:

Remember, that these are the *best* shots I have of our 'formal portrait' session.  This is the best shot I have of me with the ring bearers and flower girl. 

These aren't that bad, right?  Well, check this out...here is one of my favorite pictures of the day:

Notice anything wrong with this photo?  How about the fact that Mr Fix It's tie is hanging over his arm?  Um, shouldn't a photographer be looking for things like that in a photo?  Yeah, maybe it slips past them once in a while, right?  So I'll let it go for now.  But what about this?

I made these little DIY signs to take our photo to use on our thank you cards...look at the few that he got of us holding them:

Here's the best shot he got of us holding these:

I love this photo, but notice that in BOTH of these, my sign is covering Mr Fix It's sign.  The bottom shot, which is the best one, is pretty far away, too for me to be able to use it on a Thank You card...you can barely see the words unless I crop it in real tight.  :(

I have been in a few weddings over the past years, and in today's digital age, you see photographers constantly looking back over their image they just shot in their LCD screen to see if they got the shot.  Shouldn't he have noticed that the fact that we are taking a pic holding signs means he should make sure the signs are visible in his shots?!?

Two weeks before our wedding, I sent my photographer the following slideshow I created.  Almost all of these photos are from other weddings at our venue (Rancho Las Lomas).  We paid BIG BIG bucks for this venue specifically because of it's beauty, unique grounds (a zoo!) and the huge amount of photo opportunities and locations it offered. 

I did get some shots from some of these locations for sure.  But there are a TON of shots that I didn't get.  That is what I am most disappointed about.  For example, he didn't get a shot of me and Mr Fix It standing next to each other displaying our shoes!  The bright red ones I was so excited about.  He did get some shoe shots that were cool, like these:

He also got 30 shots of my dress along with another 8 shots of my shoes.  Yep, 40 shots of just my dress and shoes hanging.  That sounds cool.  Except for one little thing...I only received 17 photos of our entire family! 

I have a sister (who's married with 2 kids), my mom, my dad, his wife and of course my daughter, Little Miss as my immediate family.  Mr Fix It has 4 siblings (all married) and with 7 children between them plus his parents.  Out of an immediate family of 25 people, I have a TOTAL of only 17 pictures of us with the family.  What irritates me more than anything is that I do not have one single shot of me, my daughter and Mr Fix It together on our wedding day.  The only photo I have with the three of us in it, is this one with my mom, dad and sister in it:

How can a photographer who photographs weddings for a living and has been doing it for YEARS, NOT realize that he didn't get a shot of the bride and groom with their (my) children!?!  On top of that, I have no individual shots of me and my mom or me and my dad with me!  The ONLY photo I have from my entire wedding day with me and my mom is the picture above of us with the family.  How is that possible?

At my sister's wedding, we had like 10+ shots of the bride with each individual bridesmaid, our mom, our dad, even my Aunt who was just hanging out while we were shooting got into a few pics with just her and the bride!  We had enough pics of the ring bearer and flower girl to create a mini photo album of the two kids (our cousins) for their parents!  I have not even a handful of pics of me with the flower girl, ring bearers and bride and groom. 

See that cute little shot of the couple sitting on the bench swing in the slideshow?  Well, we sat on that bench with my bouquet sitting next to me and Mr Fix It standing behind me.  You can see it at the very end of the video trailer I shared last week.  Well, you know what the only TWO shots I received from our photographer were of this location?  Mr Fix It sucking on my neck!  And you can't even see my bouquet or the fact that I am sitting on the bench swing!

And here is the best shot we got of us on the balcony.  The rest of the 10 or so pics he gave us are of us totally laughing and goofing off...though funny, nothing that could be blown up to be a gorgeous keepsake or portrait.  And though I know you can zoom in on photos to get a 'closer' shot, look at how far away we are in this!

Here's another example of my disappointment.  He only took a handful of photos of me with each of my individual bridesmaids and of Mr Fix It with his individual groomsmen.  Here's some shots of Mr Fix It with the groomsmen:

Is there ever a time when a guy looks good sitting in a tuxedo or suit?  Look at how wrinkled they look!  And how do you get any type of personality or fun/cool poses while sitting on a ledge?  Look at how Mr Fix It's shoulder is up in his ear in this one with his brother!

I don't even want to know what's going on in Groomsmen J's pants in this shot below!

The only photo he got of my groom standing with a groomsmen during this little shoot with each of the guys was this one with his brother in which Mr Fix It is not even smiling:

He did the same thing with us ladies...he had me sitting on a ledge in my beautiful gown to take photos with each of my maids.  I don't know why it didn't don on me to say something at the time!

This shot I do love but it was actually taken by his assistant, NOT our photographer!  And it is the only one we have inside the quaint little cafe with all the little tables and windows.  One shot!  That's it!

If you know me at all, you know I have been all about the details of this wedding.  I was aching for photos of the flowers, the guest book, the escort cards, the table numbers, the centerpieces and tables all set up.  My photographer once mentioned that he is 'a details guy' and I told him that was good because I wanted pictures of everything I had worked on for 16 months.  Especially because I did not get to see most of it all set up on the wedding day.  What upsets me the most are all of the pictures he did *NOT* get...some I mentioned above, but here is a list of many more pictures I did not get from our wedding day:

*  A photo of my bouquet all by itself (showing off the brooch that belonged to Mr Fix It's mother).  This is the *only* photo I got which showcases my bouquet by itself (notice my flower girl running through the background)

*  A shot of the memorial table.  I did not see the memorial table the entire day!  It had 2 vases on it (one with a floating candle, one with white tulips) that were engraved with the names of Mr Fix It's mother and my grandparents and Aunt.  It also had votive candles on it and a digital frame scrolling with photos of our loved ones.  Finally, it had a poem on the table commemorating our love for those relatives.  Here are the only two photos I got of the table/items:

(This tulip bouquet is on a reception table as the memorial table wasn't set up yet)

Now why in the heck would you take a photo of a frame on a table that did not even have the linen on it yet?  Why would you not come back to this table once it was set up? 

*  He also did not get any pictures of the reception tables all set up.  Rather, he took photos of items on the tables as they were being set out.  So there is not one shot of an entire table set up with the linens, favors, centerpieces, glassware, table numbers, etc.  The shot I got of my escort card table, which I envisioned like this:

This is what I got (after half the guests had hit the table and the sun had pretty much set):

*  Apart from all of the bridal party and family photos I feel were totally lacking (or missing!), I don't feel he was able to 'direct' us much through the photos we took of me and my groom and the family and bridal party.  Most of our photos he would direct us by telling us to 'look stoic' or to 'play with his ear.'  How is that good direction to get emotions of love, joy, laughter, romance, etc out of someone?  When I would ask him in our meetings how he got a certain shot, he would tell me "I don't give away my secrets."  What secrets?!?

I had many meetings with him and showed him many photos of the style and shots and locations I wanted.  He said I had an eye for 'good photography' and he was excited to work with me.  His website and his albums in his office resembled what I wanted.  So I don't know what went wrong on the wedding day.  My cousin (Bridesmaid A) told me that she repeatedly would tell him that he needed to get a shot of the escort card table or the bouquets or the bridal party and he would put her off.  She said he and his assistant were referring to her as the 'trouble maker' because she was interrupting them. 

Mr Fix It repeatedly told him that we needed to get out of the ceremony area and go take photos in some of the other locations on the property.  I have no pictures of us on the beautiful bridges, or near the coy pond, or the animals, or on the walkways or in the orange orchard or near the fountains...none of those locations!  We wanted a shot with this antique car:

But we didn't get it...even though we were standing 5 yards from it at one point!

My photographer asked me during the family photos "Are you absolutely sure I got all of the photos you want before I dismiss your family?"  I told him "I guess so."  Looking back, why the hell was he asking *ME* (the bride) if I got all the photos I wanted?!?  It's my wedding day!  I am paying YOU to get all the photos I told you I wanted so that I don't have to think about it on this day! 

I had given him the slide show and showed him photos from my sister's wedding.  I had filled out a short form that had a few 'must have' shots...like one of Mr Fix It with ALL of the men on his side of the family.  Yeah, he didn't take that shot.  :( 

I am now kicking myself that I didn't make a specific list of locations, poses, and people that I absolutely must have from our photographer.  I didn't want to 'restrict' him or bind him to looking down at a list, but I realize now what a mistake this was to not have this part planned out more specifically.  I thought we were on the same page, I thought some shots (like one of the bride and her mother) were obvious shots that any wedding photographer would know to get.  Apparently not.

So now here is my dilemma...what do I do about it?  I have discussed it with family and Mr Fix It.  I have talked to the other photographer, Jordana Hazel of Hazelnut Photography who was the runner up to my photographer selection.   There is nothing I can do about all the shots we didn't get with our family.  But the shots of me and Mr Fix It, the ones around the venue, I *CAN* do something about those. 

I have made arrangements with our venue, my hair stylist and my dry cleaners to go back to the property in our wedding attire for free (or with discounts - to have my dress cleaned again), and take a 'day after' shoot around the grounds.   Mr Fix It has reluctantly agreed because he knows how sad I am about all this.  But he said the only way that he will agree to it, is if we can get our photographer to give us a refund to cover having Jordana shoot the second photo session.  Mr Fix It says I should be thankful we have an amazing video showing most of what our photographer missed.  (I am waiting for it to arrive any day now.)  My mom and others have said I should ask our photographer to go back and take more photos free of charge.  But Mr Fix It and I don't feel like we would be very comfortable with him because of our frustrations right now.

Do I go ahead and try to contact my photog to let him know how disappointed I am and point out all of these issues?  Do I go ahead and plan to do another shoot in my gown and a suit for Mr Fix It and go more artsy and get those cool shots?  Or do I mourn the loss of what I don't have, be happy with what I do have and let it go as a lesson learned?

Has the wedding industry and blogland jaded me into being overly critical of my photographer and therefore holding him to unrealistic demands and work?  Or am I justified in my frustration and disappointment? I know that lighting can often affect where you shoot and if time runs out, you can't hit all the locations you want.  I know that people don't pay attention and are uncooperative and not models and so with those uncontrollable variables you can't always have a guarantee on gorgeous, artsy photos.  But shouldn't my photographer have said "Hey, we are running out of time or I don't have the light, so I need to know what your top priorities are for shots and locations?"  He didn't do any of that. 

What are your thoughts girls?  Help me out!  Give me back my sanity because I have been fighting back the tears and mulling over this trying to see it rationally for over a week now!

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP:  If there are specific locations, poses or people that you absolutely want to capture in photos on your wedding day, be sure to make a list of these (with samples if possible) and give them to your photographer clearly communicating the importance of these shots.  Don't worry if they are offended or feel like you are telling them how to do your job...this is what you are paying them for!