Vendor: J Wagler Photography
Firstly, I never felt all that important to Jackie. After we decided that we liked her portfolio and her price, I didn't hear much from her. I noticed during our engagement session that she didn't really have many creative ideas outside of the standard poses. And after seeing how she ranted and raved about other customers in her blog when she posted their pictures, we felt a little neglected when she didn't do the same for us. It seems that a lot of her business so far has been for friends, which really makes her other customers feel second class.
On our wedding day, I again noticed that I had to be the source of all creative ideas that weren't detail shots of my shoes, dress, decorations, etc (which probably make up about half of the pictures we got in the end... too many in my opinion). When we took our outdoor pictures, she had us either looking directly into the sun or with the sun behind us. We only had an hour for pictures between the ceremony and reception, so my husband and I asked her to take us back outside after dinner. She never came to get us, so we didn't get anymore pictures.
At the end of the night, she told me I would get my pictures in 3 weeks. 4 weeks later, I started emailing and got excuses about how her and her husband were moving, she was busy for whatever reason, etc. I work a 9-5 Monday through Friday. I can't tell my boss that I didn't get my work done because of personal business going on at home. If this is your job, then you should keep your promises and do your personal errands after work like the rest of us. We finally got our pictures in the mail almost 2 months after our wedding.
Almost ALL of the "edited" pictures were edited to make them look over-exposed or white-out. In addition, several of the posed pictures with my immediate family were unevenly cropped. My grandma was half cut-out of one. When I asked Jackie about this, she complained that my little brothers and sisters (ages 3-16) wouldn't smile and stand still for the pictures... not sure what that has to do with centering the group in the frame.
I found skin blemishes and discolorations on around 50 of the edited pictures. I asked her to take another look and she responded that she had spent hours editing my pictures and if I wanted her to look at them again I would have to tell her exactly which pictures and what was wrong with them. So I had to go through all 2000 or so pictures and make a list and description of what I wanted fixed.
To top it all off, I don't have pictures of over half of our guests. I expected that she would make her way from table to table during dinner as photographers have done at every wedding that I have ever been to. She brought her husband to our wedding as her assistant, I guess it may have turned into date night for them?
Through all this, I remained polite and friendly... I tend to take the kill-them-with-kindness road. But now that I have seen the pictures and realized how many of my guests weren't captured in any photographs, I completely regret choosing Jackie over the other photographers in the same price range.