Arg...I'm kicking myself a little for not doing better research on our photographer. I hired his company after going to a bridal show and hating every photography booth except for his. I really liked the style of his photography and decided that it was worth the significant expense. However, since then I found two online reviews, both negative. I decided that we could avoid most of the pitfalls mentioned in the reviews by having a clear list of the photos we wanted and being up front about our priorities.

Well, we had our last meeting with our photographer before the wedding and it didn't go so smoothly. We have had two prior meetings, and each went amicably. In the mean time, I've had a chance to look at photographs from other weddings and decide what I want for mine. Going in to this meeting, I knew that in addition to traditional ceremony posed shots and candid reception shots I wanted photographs of the reception venue and its set-up before the guests arrive and the tables get trashed. With this in mind, I signed up for two photographers so we could get the coverage we need.

Here is how things went wrong: First, he expanded the six shots we wanted for our posed session to more than 24, by moving most of the pre-ceremony shots to the post-ceremony session. Then, our photographer insisted that both he and the assistant photographer be present for our entire posed shot session, and no, one of them cannot go to the venue early to cover the reception details. Why? Because the posed shots will suffer and pictures of people are more important than pictures of things. I know he's the professional, and pictures of us with our families are a top priority, but he didn't seem to get how important seeing pictures of the (non-trashed) details were to me. Our wedding is pretty heavy on the DIY, so most of the details represent the hard work and creativity of my loved ones and myself. Unfortunately, there was no compromise on his end.

My disappointment colored the rest of the meeting, and poor Mr. Lollipop tried to play diplomat, but didn't meet with much success. The short end of it is that our photographer is going to do what he wants to do and we'll need to hire a third (!) photographer to get the shots we want. Crap. It's too late to hire anyone else and we've already paid a hefty deposit.

The moral here is to always check online reviews before handing over a deposit.

Labels: photography, wedding

posted by Alison 7/25/2007 09:40:00 AM : (0) comments : splink

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