Michelle is extremely fun to work with. She went above and beyond to help us with how we could capture our special moment. Would recommend her to anyone who’s looking for someone to completely trust with their photographs!

My husband and I are not picture people and were a little bit nervous about the experience of being professionally photographed! Lucky for us, Michelle made everything as easy and comfortable as it could be. She coached us on how to pose and feel natural, and focused on getting a ton of natural moments throughout the day. She made it a ton of fun. And our photos are. BEAUTIFUL. People I haven't spoken to in 10+ years are reaching out to me to tell me how stunning our wedding photos are. We really are so happy with our decision to hire Michelle!

Michelle did an amazing job taking our engagement and wedding photos. I would highly recommend her for your photography needs.

On our wedding day, I had complete confidence in Michelle and knew that she would do a beautiful job. She helped me feel relaxed the whole day, never making me feel rushed or stressed. Her attention to detail was immaculate. We are so happy with our pictures and our experience as a whole!

I have followed and admired Michelle’s work since uni and knew I wouldn’t want anyone else to capture our wedding! We couldn’t have been happier to get her to Greece to be our wedding photographer. She has such a great sense for detail and her compositions are truly outstanding.

We hired Michelle Lanning for our wedding on 6/11/2022. Her portfolio was great and we really liked her style, additionally, her price point was an added bonus. Now, while her body of work is obviously beautiful, the following was our experience with her and her services.

Initially, the contract we signed stated a two week turnaround for our photos post wedding that was contingent on her workload plus a $100 for a custom wedding album. As this was my first time utilizing professional photography services, this seemed reasonable. As a June bride, I understood the busy wedding season may affect the 2 week turnaround, because of this, I did not start asking for updates until August. I made a few attempts to contact to understand the delay on our photos and at one point she said she needed "one more week max to complete", but weeks passed and she was continually unresponsive to my requests for updates.

It wasn't until multiple attempts to contact Michelle, that my husband left her a voice message letting her know she was in breach of contract. After that voicemail, I almost immediately received messages and the photogallery from Michelle finally on August 29.

Michelle explained that she had personal issues over the summer and that she has "anxiety with check-ins." While I am empathetic to her plight, as her client, it felt obligatory on my part to be apologetic to being ignored/ghosted/uninformed. However, I responded letting her know all I ever wanted were updates and that I understood that life happens, which I do.

Michelle did offer to refund us the $100 for the custom album, but I guess against my better judgment, I decided that I would still like to give her a chance to create the album, as it was something I was looking forward to. She informed me she would give me an ETA as soon as she shipped the album.

In terms of the photographs, I was just happy to get the photos. Family members commented that they were oversaturated, the lighting was unflattering, and all the beautiful purples from my color theme were washed out. At the time, I didn't want to believe them because I just went through a frustrating process trying to just get them, but now I see objectively that the quality of my photos are not up to par from the other work that Michelle has showcased on her social media/portfolio.

In late October of 2022, I still had not received any update on the wedding album and I reached out again with no reply for the remainder of the month. In November, I sent Michelle a “firmer” email expressing my disappointment with her services. Unfortunately, Michelle responded back with a very pointed email letting me know "printers sent the wedding album to [her] previous address in Carpinteria" and that she "drove 150 miles round trip" to get it for me.

If I can be candid as her client and after the multiple months of poor communication, I personally felt her email lacked accountability as well as felt a bit rude considering I was only requesting what I had paid for, and she advised she would provide it timely.

It wasn't until December, 6 months after my wedding and with a contracted 2 week turnaround time, that we finally got the album, which included:

The wrong wedding date on the cover.
No chronological flow to the photos.
Awkwardly cropped photos.
Little to no consideration for the physical layout of the pictures.

I informed Michelle and she ended up giving us a $100 refund for the album and let us know that she did not usually offer album services, but we were one of her first clients. Additionally, she said that she has never had so many issues with any of her other clients…

All in all our experience with Michelle was very frustrating and greatly soured what should have been a fun experience. Out of sadness, my husband and I reached out later requesting the RAW files to try and salvage/fix the resolution of the overexposed photos and create the album myself. However, Michelle has not responded, but I understand as there was no prior agreement about us receiving the RAWs and that shouldnt change, regardless of our feelings/opinions.

I do admit, I should have looked at the photos objectively instead of just being happy to have received them so I could have reached out sooner regarding their quality.

My take on the service as a whole is that Michelle's professionalism is lacking. We are all human and life happens, but as a small business owner, you owe your clients the bare minimum of honest communication. Check-ins are a part of providing a service and it is not the client's fault if their products are sent to the wrong address and they did not know it was sent to the wrong address.

Michelle is a good photographer - her IG shows that. But I hope she has grown as a professional because a bad day/month/summer should not influence the quality and experience of future clients' most special memories, like it did mine.

We booked Michelle to take photos for our courthouse elopement in July 2024. Now this is not a review of her photos, which look beautiful, but of our experience with her. Communication with Michelle was great leading up to the wedding however, she went to the wrong courthouse on the day of our wedding and was not able to photograph us. While she initially apologized, every subsequent time she alluded to not photographing the wedding she said she was “unable to attend”. When in fact, she was able to attend, she just did not go to the right place even after I had texted her the address the night before. She was able to get a replacement photographer to come & photograph our wedding, which we were grateful for but of course it was not her or her style. After our shoot with a different photographer she texted us (without any apology) & reminded us that she will be requiring the full amount of the remaining balance. This was crazy to us considering she didn’t do any of the work, but we figured she still has to edit photos. Fast forward, 5 weeks later we had not received our photos or any updates. We emailed Michelle & asked if she had an ETA on the photos. She replied saying that according to our contract, delivery is within two months. However, our contract actually stated that delivery would be within four weeks and that storage of the photos would be 2 months. We told her this & she said she would get the photos to us by the end of the week with no apology for the delay. Once she finally sent us the gallery, she let us know that she was dealing with some personal issues which led to the delay in photos. While we understand that sometimes things happen, she should have at least communicated that to us. After going through the photos we realized that at least half of the photos that we took were missing from the gallery. We emailed her again and she asked which photos we were referring to. She replied alleging that she did edit the photos and maybe there was some error when uploading the photos. We did not receive the rest of the gallery for at least another week & a half. The communication with Michelle was terrible & her lack of accountability & the delay in photos was dumbfounding especially since she went to the wrong courthouse and did not photograph our special day! We are so disappointed that this happened because we loved her style & were really hoping our wedding photos would turn out as amazing as the ones we have seen.