My wedding was the same week that Jen had her baby. So obviously, she was unable to be at my wedding so she had a photographer fill in for her. This was extremely disappointing, especially since I had booked Jen two years before my wedding. But of course, life happens so we made due.
The disappointment began on my wedding day. The photographers that filled in for Jen were not up to par with "Visual Poetry" standards, we received limited to no direction, as a result so many valuable pictures were not taken or even thought of until after the fact. I found myself directing people for pictures and making sure I had the right pictures taken before anyone left the church, while the photographers just stood and stared at me with no opinion or ideas. We paid for 8 hours of photography and were only provided 430 pictures. This is approximately 25 pictures per photographer per hour. Out of the 430 pictures I received two head-shots of my guests, while we had 130 guests present at our wedding. I was not even provided a picture of my entire dress, meaning without the Train cut out of the picture.
When I contacted Jen regarding my disappointment she offered to do a Bridal Session with my Husband and I. This was not acceptable, your wedding day only occurs once, you can never recreate the raw emotions of your wedding day. The only sufficient solution was to provide additional pictures from my wedding day. But according to Jen this was not an option since the other pictures that I was not provided were not "Visual Poetry Quality."
I recommend that you have a clear agreement regarding how many pictures you will be provided before you book Visual Poetry or any wedding photographer.
And yes the pictures I received, I do love, they are from my wedding, my disappointment was the unwillingness to work with me when this situation would never happen again with another bride. The unwillingness to bend the rules when a rare situation occurred, like this one. And reviewing another photographers work does not demonstrate their ability to provide ideas for pictures or actually show what it will be like working with them on your wedding day. As for the headshots, numerous guests informed me of their picture being taken, but I never had the chance to actually see the pictures, as Visual Poetry claimed she did not receive these pictures from her fill in photographers.
Visual Poetry responded with the following comments:
Thank you for taking the time to list your review of our services. To be fair, I would love to give our side of things. The day of this couples wedding was the evening I was released from the hospital after delivering my son. As much as I would have loved to be there with them, it just wasn't possible. They were informed of my health situation from the moment I found out I was pregnant and in preperation of the 'what-ifs' weeks prior to the wedding we discussed options and I had them approve an associate photographer to document their wedding in my absense. There were no surprises - the photographer's work was reviewed prior to the wedding and claimed as acceptable. Also, when a few images were posted prior to the delivery of the whole proofing gallery - the couple stated their love for the images.. I quote the bride "OMG Jen!! These are amazing.... You seriously have me to tears!!! I can't wait to see the rest!! Breath taking is the only words I have to describe these ;)". Now, being that this wedding was booked LONG in advance to the date, the price this couple got were far below what I would have charged present day. Value for services far exceeds the investment that was made. 430 Images is acceptable and within the estimated range of images delivered. Quality over quantity has ALWAYS been my goal. Also, we rarely do guest portraits (table shots) unless the bride and groom specifically request them - which is why I did not instruct the associate photographer to capture them. Instead, we work in a photojournalistic approach and document the event as it happens instead of delivering many 'headshots' of guests. Again, I am very sorry for this couples bad experience and as the bride mentioned, to try and help them I offered them a free bridal session, which they declined. Effort was made to make this a pleasant experience for them, despite them getting fantastic images from their wedding day. And rest assured, we have no plans on getting pregnant again. We now have two amazing children and couldn't be happier!
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