I was originally very excited after having met with Robert to discuss plans for our April, 2010 wedding at Rancho Las Lomas. He had been wanting to shoot at our venue and the work he shared with me at his office seemed very reflective of what I was looking for from the styles, poses and variety of documentary photojournalistic images I wanted to remember our wedding day by.
Robert also seemed very personable with me and was even thoughtful in sending me a selection of songs that he thought I might like. He complimented me on my good taste in photography when I shared my sister's album with him showing him what type of images I wanted to capture on our day.
I do not need to drag out a long list of examples here but if you refer to the following two posts I shared on my wedding blog, you will get a very accurate representation of why I became so frustrated and disappointed with Robert on our wedding day and once we received the images he shot.
http://allconsumedbride.blogspot.com/2010/06/biggest-let-down-from-our-wedding-need.htmlhttp://allconsumedbride.blogspot.com/2010/07/vendor-review-update-on-my-photo.htmlA few of the brief reasons why I was so disappointed with him are as follows:
1) Two of my bridesmaids told me that he was not very nice and was even rather rude to them while trying to direct them for photos as well as how he responded when one bridesmaid tried to let him know that my escort card table was all set up and ready to be photographed.
2) My husband was extremely frustrated that he chose to stick to the ceremony area at our venue to take many, many shots when there were a massive amount of unique and beautiful locations to walk to on the property like a private zoo with tigers, an orange orchard, a coy pond, an old antique car, beautiful bridges, etc. Though I had told him several times that we really wanted shots at all of these locations, he missed out on most of them or only provided ONE photo from some of the few he did shoot at. We paid a massive amount of money for our unique venue and did not even get to take advantage of all that it offered us for photography.
3) During the family portraits, he did not shoot nor provide us shots of:
*The Bride and Groom with all of our ring bearers and flower girl
*The Bride alone with her mother (I have only one shot of my mother and I in a family portrait from our wedding day)
*The Groom alone with his parents
*The Bride and Groom with the Bride's daughter (how can you not take any photos of the bride/groom with their children?)
4) In addition, I made it very clear that the detail shots (bouquets, escort cards, table set up, room set up, flowers, etc) were very, very important to me. Some of these details he completely missed - I do not have one single shot of the memorial table we set up with pictures of our loved ones who had passed on. And some of them he took during the set up process instead of once everything was all set up. He took a picture of a poem sitting on a table with no linens or anything else on it yet. He also took pictures of the floral arrangments and table numbers on the tables before the tables were finished...they had no silverware or glassware or anything else on them yet. I have absolutely no shots at all of what our reception room looked like all set up with everything out.
5) I asked him to take photos of me and my husband each holding up a sign that read "Thank" and "You" for us to use on our thank you cards. However, when he shot the images, he neglected to notice that my sign was covering up the groom's sign to where you could not see all the word. If you are taking a picture specifically to display signs in it, would you not think to check and make sure you got a shot of the signs that was visible?
These were just some of the obvious things he did (or rather did not do) that truly left us very frustrated and disappointed with his overall service.
I did respectfully yet honestly send him an e-mail sharing these and many more specific examples of why we felt we were entitled to some sort of reimbursement since he did not deliver all of the images that were contracted for, and yet he only responded saying he provided a service that was fair and reasonable for the price we paid and then he finished by asking me if he was supposed to be held to the 'impossible standard that every shot he took at our wedding should be perfect?'
At the very least, we were hoping for an apology and acknowledgement of our legitimate issues and maybe even an explanation as to why things didn't get delivered or turn out the way we hoped for. We did not get that at all.
I truly encourage any bride considering Robert's services to go with a younger, more stylish and more attentive and creative photographer.