I truely don't know where to begin with this so I will try to keep it short. This photographer made so many errors that we are currently sueing him. Here is a short list of the major issues:
1. Arrived to wedding without an assistant. When asked about this - stated that the assistant was sick and wouldn't be coming. This was really terrible for us as we had made it very clear that we wanted his assistant to take advance photos at our reception before guests arrived.
2. We began the photo shoot in the church - which is one of the oldest churchs in Minneapolis and is VERY dark on the inside. He did not have any additional lighting equipment with him which we found odd, but he reassured us that it would be fine.
3. We had told him that he would be riding in the limo bus with our wedding party as we wanted coverage of them starting the celebration. He was VERY aware of this. Literally, less than 5 minutes after we walked back down the aisle, he came up and asked my new husband and I who was going to drive his car. Needless to say we were both floored that he would have the nerve to ask us and expect us to make arrangements for him. If he had an assistant this would not have been an issue. My husband ran around from person to person and after 10 minutes found someone willing to drive the car. Needless to say, that was not what he wanted to do right after getting married.
4. The reception site was at a country club, and once they dim the lights it is also very dark. Again, no extra lighting. In addition, because there was nobody there to take advance photos - there are people in all of the decor shots. Additionally, our cake was custom made to look like the details on my dress - this too was made clear to him. All of the photos that he took of our cake are from the side - so none of the details of the cake are showing - ummm...really - who wants photos of the sides of the cake.
5. Okay - I could keep going on as the list is considerably longer than what I have already listed. The biggest problem that we have is that he somehow lost our entire family photo shoot. We do not have one single photo of us with our parents, our grandparents, our flower girl and ring bearer. Last time I checked, a wedding was the celebration of two families coming together - according to his photographic coverage our families didn't attend. There are not words to describe how crushed we are.
We collected all of the costs to re-do the photo shoot with our families in the church. I even eliminated the cost of having our entire wedding party come, as I didn't want to drag this guy through the ringer. It would have been our immediate families and our ring bearer and flower girl. I offered that or giving us our money back - he refused both. His lawyer contacted ours and made an offer of half of what we paid. We rejected that offer and are waiting until the end of this week to see if they come back with a better one. If not, we will begin court proceedings.
I will update this review when we have a resolution. It really is a shame that this happened as he is a very talented photographer, which is why we hired him. Sadly, he made some really bad choices with regards to our wedding. I promised him that if he didn't make this right, I tell the truth in as many places as possible so that another family is not destroyed by him.
***UPDATE*** - We waited and never heard back from his lawyer. We are filing a lawsuit. I will continue to update and things move forward.
***SECOND UPDATE***- We went to court and Michael did not show up. We received our judgment in the full asking amount and are now in the process of collecting the judgment.
