Hey Indy Ladies!
I just wanted to give you a heads up about the photog that I had for my wedding. The photog's name is Wendy Hakes, business name "Photography by Wendy". She is based in LaPorte.
To begin with, she was very hard to get a hold of. I had called her several times to check on the amount of time that she would need for photos between the ceremony and reception, but she did not get back to me until two days before my wedding and began to tell me what I could and could not do because of her preference. For example, she didn't want to do a sending, but instead hide us in a back room until everyone left to take pictures. She also refused to do destination photos with two hours left before cocktail hour. The destination was 5 minutes from the church and to the reception site. We ended up just waiting around for cocktail hour to start at the reception taking cheesy photos that I didn't want
When the wedding came around, she was on time but in a very bad mood. She was rude to my wedding party and family and literally pushed me to put me in the position that she wanted. I had told her that I did not want my bridesmaids flowers on my train for any of the pictures, but she did it anyways. For every picture. I do not have a good picture of my train. At one point she wanted me to lay down on a couch, but my dress was fitted perfectly that I couldn't do it and told her that it was hurting me just to try some of her poses. She told me I was being a winey baby and she forced me on the couch. I had bruises for weeks from where the ribbing went into my side.
I waited about two months for my CDs to be ready for pick up from her. I was patient because I thought they were being worked on so that I would get the best quality. I couldn't have been more wrong. However, don't get me wrong, there were a handful of the 2000 pictures that I really loved. These pictures could have been taken by anyone. There were pictures that were blurry, not aligned, and much too dark.
The worst part was that I could not view my photos very easily because of the CD sticker label she placed on them. It appears it was placed on them in a hurry because the sticker was so off center that it hung over the edge and couldn't be read by my computer. When I cut off the hanging edges, the sticker through the CD off balance and STILL was hard for my computer to read.
The photos that I was able to view included my ceremony. I cried my eyes out when I realized everything that was missed. (Something that you should know is that she and her husband came as photographers and there is no reason for them to have missed anything.)
They Missed:
My mother and MIL placing the sand for the sand ceremony
One of my bridesmaids coming down the aisle
Me coming down the aisle
My husband's reaction to first seeing me
My husband putting on my wedding ring
My husband and I coming back up the aisle as a new couple
I asked her to only redo two of the 8 CDs that she gave me because I was tired of having to peel and cut the sticker off to view my wedding photos. She replied with "This has never happened to me before! Go out and get a 16 GB flash drive and I will just put them all on there. Mail it to me at [address]." So not only did I have to pay her for her service and the CDs, but she wants me to go out and buy an expensive flash drive and mail it to her. She just wont simply fix her mistake.
I would never wish this on anyone and I hope I spared some LaPorte girls a lot of trouble and disappointment.