Help! Disappointed in wedding photos and photographer won’t message me back

Hello! I would like some feedback and emotional support from anyone who has experienced this or any professional photographers.


We found a photographer and did an engagement shoot with her. They are the most beautiful picture in the world. My husband and I were so worried about looking awkward because we don’t take photos often, but she did so well posing us and making it fun! The photos show so much love and joy and blew us away. We clicked so well and I could not have imagined anyone else being with us on the day of the wedding.
But then we got the wedding photos back, and I cried They missed so many key moments, the lighting is terrible, and no photos are close up of our faces. All of the photos from the ceremony are far away with no photos of our faces or emotions. She didn’t even get me (bride) walking home the aisle. Just a ton of photos from her standing in one spot. Family photos she positioned the sun directly behind us and you can’t see anyone’s faces. Group photos are okay but I didn’t even care about those. There are only a handful of photos of me alone with my husband and they are all almost the same pose. Reception photos are terrible too. It looks like I gave my teenage bother a camera to wander around and take photos of random nothingness. Our venue had a a beautiful staircase that I specifically told her I want photos of and I found her during the reception to remind her of my request, and the poses suck! Totally awkward and unusable and didn’t even capture the stairs.
We paid over $2500 for 8 hours and two photographers. It doesn’t even look like we had two photographers, and the photos look amateur at best. After I politely told her and she didn’t respond for weeks. Finally my husband contacted her and she added a few more edits to the group, but that doesn’t solve the fact that the photos are badly taken, not poorly edited. We told her thank you for adding more but that we were still having a hard time picking photos for the prints included in the package. No response. So now I have bad wedding photos, and I’m missing part of my package. The edits are done beautifully but the photos themselves suck.
Professional photographers: Were my expectations too high? Why won’t she message me back? We did our research, did an engagement shoot with her, and loved her! What happened? Bad day? Inexperience? poor planning on her part? Should I have connected with her more about what we expected? I’m struggling with beating myself up for not directing my photographer on the day of, but my husband keeps reminding me we trusted her to DJ what she did on engagement photo day because that’s her job. Our job was to enjoy the day!
Brides: Anyone else experience this? How did you get over it? It’s really been eating me down and I want to move past it and remember my wedding day for the joy and love it was! Please send help and lots of love.