Cassandra Benning Studios Reviews
Reviews
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Hollie Sent on 12/29/2022
Perfection is a understatement
First off, I would like to say that this amazing woman has forever changed my life from the time that we hired her till even last week she has been outstanding she communicated so much the whole time leading up to the wedding. Her prices are amazing. Her packages are amazing, the morning of the wedding she arrived. I was getting my make up done I was scared to death. She knew I had some insecurities, and yet she made me feel more comfortable than I have in my entire life. My dress was so big that it could not fit into a jaguar , what did she do took me to my venue no questions asked throughout the wedding in the ceremony her and her coworker took so many photos and they were so respectful. The guest enjoyed her as well after the wedding was over, and we finally got to see the photos my heart sank into my feet , I have never felt that beautiful in my whole life. She captured a part of me that I never even knew existed. I’ve had insecurities my whole life, but when I look at those photos I sit, and I cry as pure happiness. Cassandra has been a huge part of my life this past year , I could not have asked for a better photographer and now Friend I currently just welcomed a grandson into the world and she will be taking his first photos. She is the only person in the world that I would trust with the job. If it any point, you’re unsure on, if you should hire her , please don’t hesitate I promise you you will not regret it. She made the most important day of my life, one of the most beautiful days of my life and because of her I have the best slideshow on my computer that I get to look at daily and picture on my wall and a photo album to die for , she came early she helped me get in my dress. She took amazing photos. She took me to my venue like I said all the guest loved her. How makes me when I get married again just so I can hire her again thank you Cassandra I’m never fully be able to thank you enough . -
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Wandalee Sent on 12/30/2018
So glad I hired her!
I am so glad we hired Cassandra and her team! The photos were beautiful, she captured beautiful moments at our wedding as well as decor and details. I don’t know who had more fun at the reception her or my husband! :-) I’m very happy with the quality and service. I also appreciated that we were able to make monthly payments online and that I filled out a detailed sheet a few days before the wedding indicating what photos I wanted and when. This made it easy for me not to have worry about small details such as “who shouldn’t be in the wedding party photos” because Cassandra took charge. -
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![Jennifer]()
Jennifer Sent on 11/03/2018Excellent photographer
My family is a large group and we hired Cassandra to take family photos for my parents 70th Birthday . Despite 6 young kids and 8 adults, Cassandra was so patient and engaging with the kids. We absolutely love how the photos turned out ! I highly recommend her ! -
Ashley Sent on 10/31/2018
Amazing experience
Cassandra made my day extremely graceful! I love her upbeat attitude and personality. She is creative and knows just how to get the perfect picture. Her son/ assistant photographer himself even capture the most precious moments that went on behind the scenes that a bride normally misses. I'll never use a different photographer! -
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![Amber]()
Amber Sent on 10/30/2018Cassandra is creative, pleasant, and talented!
Cassandra was very fun to work with! She is very creative and can make any picture beautiful! She has a great personality making her a joy to be around. Her assistants were great as well! Cassandra picked out really great locations at my venue to capture pictures at. She was patient with our large family and was good with children. She even helped me with my bustle! -
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Erin Sent on 12/27/2017It was great working with Cassandra. She definitely had a great deal of patience with my husband and I since it is nearly impossible for us to take serious pictures lol. I would absolutely recommend her to anyone look for a great photographer for a wedding or any event
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![Lauren]()
Lauren Sent on 10/30/2018Thoroughly Impressed
Cassandra was great on our wedding day. Cant wait to see our pictures! -
Serena Sent on 12/06/2019
Poor customer service and below average quality photos
Edit: Cassandra tried to delete my review as soon as I posted it but WeddingWire flagged the action as suspicious and reposted it.
You never told me the discount was inactive. It was advertised on the top of your profile on the app. I'm sorry the app gave false advertising. Had you told me, I would've been fine without it. You never told me only 10 images come with the engagement session but I appreciate getting 88.
If you had the correct wedding date, you would've been confused as to why I called back and corrected you. You had to check your schedule to make sure you were available for the correct date. You even said someone had shown interest in that date but hadn't booked it. You were glad I told you the correct date. You said, "I'm glad someone is paying attention."
You still never addressed showing up a half hour early the day of my wedding without letting me know in advance. No excuse for that.
The second photographer gave us a handful of photos. I never asked for a second photographer. That was your choice to bring him. I don't care about the number of photos, it's about the quality.
You did not direct us on how to pose, place our hands, direct our gaze, etc. We just had a session to make up for your photos by another photographer, who directed us on how to pose so now I know, based on experience, what a photographer should do during a session.
As far as your excuse for eyes being closed due to people being distracted, that was not always the case, and when it was the case, why not take more photos of the same scene to ensure one will have eyes open. I gave you an example of one where no one was distracted, but I'll repeat: when Bill, the couple that won the anniversary dance, and I got our picture taken, Bill's eyes were closed. No one was distracted. We were all standing in a row, facing your camera. And you only took one photo of that, so it's all we have.
As far as some images being blurry, subject matter that one would think would be in focus being out of focus, and shots at awkward angles where hands were blocking my or my husband's head: that's probably based on your skill level and there's nothing anyone can do about that. See the photo I've attached where we are toasting.
Unfortunately, I would not recommend Cassandra for wedding photography. While we got tons of pictures, enjoy most of them, and love the photo book that came with our package, the cons outweighed the pros of the overall pictures and customer service received. I'll list the issues my husband and I had in a general chronological order, and attach some photos as examples of pictures we like and don't like.
I booked Cassandra in January. When I first reached out to her, I asked if she was available on September 1st (9/1) and she said she was. A few days before June 1st (6/1), she asked me to call her to talk about wedding details. Towards the end of the conversation, she said she would see me that Saturday and hung up. Confused and starting to stress at the realization that she had the wrong date booked up until now, I called her and told her when my wedding date was and luckily she was still available. She never apologized for messing this up.
Our agreed upon start time was 2:30 and end time was 8:30 but Cassandra didn't follow this. She showed up unexpectedly at 2. No one was ready to start taking pictures. When I asked why she was there half an hour early, she said she wanted to shoot getting ready pictures rather than dancing pictures. With a billion things on my mind and having her already there, I felt I had no choice in the matter and she never apologized for the confusion. She never gave me a heads up nor asked if she could change the times before showing up. This meant she left at 8, instead of 8:30, and we got no photos of the last half hour of the reception.
Before the wedding, Cassandra asked me to make a Pintrest board of poses I wanted, yet she never made an attempt to position us into any of these poses nor any other pose. It was up to the people having their picture taken to pose themselves. She did not instruct us on how to stand, position ourselves, where our hands should be, etc.
Although most of our pictures turned out well, we have issues with the quality a lot of them. Some posed pictures have eyes closed, mainly the bride and groom portraits. This wouldn't be a problem if we had multiple pictures of the same pose where at least one picture has eyes open but this is not the case. In some cases she took multiple shots but in every shot my or my husband's eyes or my eyes are closed. There are some pictures that would've turned out beautifully, had our eyes not been closed. I asked Cassandra what could be done to fix this. She said she would try to replace my husband's head but warned she's not great at photoshop. After waiting two weeks to hear how editing one picture was going, she repeated that she's not great at photoshop and offered to outsource it. While she did offer a solution, I was already frustrated and would rather work on fixing the pictures myself at this point. Being "not great at photoshop" is fine if multiple shots are taken to ensure eyes are open and avoid this problem entirely but that wasn't done.
Some pictures were focused on the wrong subject in the picture. When I say this, I don't refer to ones taken for artistic value. I'm referring to pictures where it would make sense to see multiple people clearly, and not one. For example, we have a picture of the toast being done by me, my husband, and two groomspeople. A groomsman is in focus, but everyone else is out of focus. As a bonus, my husband's head is almost completely blocked from camera view by raised arms. Had Cassandra taken a few steps to the left to get everyone's face in view and focused the camera on all four of us, this would've been a beautiful shot. I'm glad we have a photo our our toast but having me and my husband blurred and not being able to see my husband's face diminishes the sentimental value. I understand that during a toast there is movement, however glasses were raised and held up for at least a few seconds while there was talking. Long enough for Cassandra to move in front of our table. There are other pictures that were taken at awkward angles as well. We also have some pictures that are slightly blurry, despite the subjects standing still. This worries me that if I were to order a large print the blurriness would stand out. The shot of us kissing in front of the DJ booth is one of my favorites, but it isn't sharp like the ones taken before it.
She took a lot of pictures from too far of a distance. Almost every bride and groom portrait was taken from head to toe, very few are close up. Again, she was supposed to be using the Pintrest board for reference which had close, intimate bride and groom pictures, yet we got none. This is especially evident in our kiss at the alter. She took the shot from the farthest away possible, the end of the last aisle, so you can see the back of everyone's head. We even kissed twice to ensure she got the shot but she only got multiple shots of the same picture. Another example, is the group photo of everyone on the steps. I would've loved to have close ups of certain moments and portraits, to see details in facial expressions, the dress, suit, etc. To make up for having so many far away, I asked if she could crop some. She said she leaves them as is for me to do. In general, the amount of editing done was seemingly minimal.
Before writing this review, these issues were brought to Cassandra's attention via email. The first response was an expression of her surprise. Then I waited two weeks to hear back and her response was in defense of her work. She claimed she does not guarantee getting any specific shot and only uses Pintrest as a reference. I was not aware she did not guarantee any specific shot, and because she never helped to position anyone for any picture, it didn't seem to matter if the Pintrest board existed or not. Then she focused on the metadata of the pictures, wanting to make sure I was viewing the pictures correctly. Her reply sounded like it would be impossible to have any blurry ones, besides those with movement. I was viewing them via the USB drive that she provided on my year old PC. After that, she ignored the remaining issues, despite me mentioning them multiple times. She asked me how I want this resolved, and I told her a small refund to compensate for the issues and stress. Then she asked how much and I told her about 15%. Instead, she offered a significantly smaller refund of about 6% and large canvas print that she would only give if we accepted her stipulation. We declined her offer and she never replied since then. There was never an apology for anything. At the least, I thought she'd show some humanity towards her unhappy clients and apologize for the blatantly obviously wrong things, like getting pictures of people's eyes closed, messing up our wedding date, and not adhering to the agreed upon start and end times, but no. Judging from her responses, she didn't seem to know how to handle the situation. She is very proud of her work and stands by it. In my experience, she will not admit when she has done something wrong. -
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