M&L PhotoVideo offers quality photography services as well as DJ, videography, hair & makeup, at a value price. We booked a package to include DJ service, photography, hair & makeup for our summer wedding at our initial meeting with Marty because we liked him so much. We ended up loving the DJ service we received. That part was incredible. However, while the quality of the photos taken is good, Marty's lack of professionalism in the face of conflict is stunning.
Our problems with the company first began when, two weeks before the wedding date, the hair & makeup person called me to cancel due to the fact that she was "starting school out of town." I then had to call around to find a place that could accommodate myself, my mother, my mother-in-law, and the bridal party with such short notice. Marty did not charge us for the hair and makeup service, but the whole issue was an inconvenience to us.
Our engagement session was wonderful, and our wedding day way nice as well. Although we had only hired one photographer for the day, Marty showed up personally to provide a second angle during the ceremony. We were pleasantly surprised. In addition, the DJ asked us if he could shoot video during our wedding and reception for his own promotional purposes, and in return he would provide us with a free copy of the footage. Of course, we agreed. Who wouldn't agree to a free wedding video? We didn't realize that more "inconveniences" were around the corner.
We didn't notice anything at the time, but in the days following the wedding we received several complaints from guests about the way our photographer treated them. She was extremely rude to one guest in particular who is not a professional photographer, but happened to have the same make & model camera as she was using to shoot our wedding photos. The photographer did not like this at all, and treated our invited guest (and mother of our flower girl) as though she was invading her "turf." She made some snide remarks about how our hobbyist friend was "stealing her shots" and so on. That news was annoying, but the worst was yet to come.
When we received our proofs, we realized that some of our photos were missing. When we asked about it, we found out that our photographer had lost one of the memory sticks from the reception. The lost memory contained the only pictures of some major events - our grand entrance as husband and wife, our first dance as a married couple, our father/daughter and mother/son dances, some of the speeches, tossing of the bouquet and garter, and an unknown amount of candid shots of guests dancing and having fun. We were missing MANY moments - moments we had hired Marty and his company to document.
Despite being very disappointed, we were very understanding about the situation. Most of our friends told us we should demand a full refund, but we didn't agree. We know that accidents happen, but we also felt that we should be compensated for our loss, since the job we hired the company for was not delivered the way we had asked. We were very satisfied with the DJ service and the quality of the photographs that we did receive, so instead of asking for a full refund we came up with a partial refund amount that we considered reasonable. However, when we approached Marty with our request he was very defiant, and initially offered only $100. He cited that only approx. 15-20 minutes of our night were missing, and that amount of time wasn't worth any more money than that. After some negotiations he raised his offer to $200, but would not budge any more.
Back to that video that the DJ had taken of the wedding and reception - now our only hope for seeing some of those lost wedding moments. Well, we did receive it, and after our experience with the lost memory stick Marty even offered to edit it for us. But what a coincidence - when we watched it we realized that the exact same moments that had been lost in photos, (our entrance, dance, parent dances, tossing of bouquet and garter, etc,) had also been edited OUT of the video. The video literally showed the entire bridal party entering the reception, right up to the maid of honor and best man, and then cut off the moment before our entrance. It did not pick up again until later in the reception.
In the end, we still have a bunch of events missing with no resolution on price. we also have no physical prints - only the digital proofs. We have a crappily edited video with our special moments intentional left out, and we are pursuing a small claims court case which we may or may not win. While our experience was probably not commonplace, and there were some good parts of the business, I could NEVER in good conscience recommend this business to another person. In addition, make sure you discuss all the "what if's" with your chosen photographer ahead of time, just so you can be sure that if the unexpected does happen, you will be compensated appropriately.
M&L PhotoVideo responded with the following comments:
First of all, we did not provide video so I don't understand why she is writing a review about video. The photographer did lose about 15 pictures, her memory card was lost and we tried everything we could to find it. She had over 2,000 pictures that were not lost. I offered her a partial discount for the 15 pictures that were lost but she wanted a full refund for 15 pictures that were lost. I do understand her frustration but full refund is unfair when she does have pretty much all of the pictures and she loves them. I also gave her an additional photographer for an extra 2 hours which she did not mention. The photographer stayed an additional hour at no charge, which she did not mention.
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