Worst after sales service from a wedding photographer

I am not one to usually complain about poor service openly online - I always figured its counter productive and it makes the person complaining come across as a ******, but I have had a recent experience that has left me with no other option than to send out a public review about this as I could be saving someone from a similar headache in future and just maybe the person/company in question will read this and start responding to my mails, messages, calls and Whatsapps and do the right thing. I was planning on posting this yesterday actually but thought I might give the person/company in question one more opportunity to sort this out, but to no avail as I was once again left in the dark.

So we recently got married and had a friend - Nadine de Waal T/A NDW Photography, do our wedding photos for an agreed upon fee. The fee was paid upfront and we were promised that we would have a contract outlining the details of everything discussed in our meeting with her on paper - I have not yet received said contract from her so we held our thumbs and hoped for the best. The last contract was requested 4 days prior to our wedding.

On the day of our wedding the photographer pitched up - late, but at least she pitched up right? Her being late resulted in us not being able to document a few pre-wedding things we would have love to document though. That being said the rest of the day seemed to go fairly smooth from a photography perspective.

Two days after our wedding the photographer posted a couple of “preview” photos on her Facebook Page and tagged us in them and we were really in awe to say the least - those few photos painted a picture for us of how our wedding album would eventually look like. Those preview photos really looked amazing if I should say so may myself without sounding bias with it being my wedding and all.

Fast forward three months later, I started contacting our photographer in regards to when we could possibly expect our wedding photos as previous conversations with her led us to believe that we should have the final product within 2 weeks after our wedding - keep in mind we don’t have a singed contract to refer back to so we only had her word to go on. For the next 3 weeks I set up about 7 meetings with our photographer to get our wedding photos from her and every-time she cancelled on me because of transport, her computer breaking down, her server not working, her running late, her cellphone being broken etcetera. These cancelations sometimes even happened 10 min before we were scheduled to meet with her. Eventually after many conversations, phone calls, whats app messages and text messages I finally drove to our photographer after arranging to collect our wedding photos on a flash drive.

The built up excitement was however short lived as upon closer inspection the expectation that we have built up after seeing those “preview” photos on facebook was not a reflection of the wedding album that we have received.

To say that it was catastrophic is an understatement. Allow me to take the time to explain the magnitude of the situation in a few points - not all of them though, as I would be able to write up a 10,000 word essay if I had to list everything):

1. Our colour scheme was edited from a vibrant green and pink to a burnt orange and faded autumn vibe. Even the pink roses that our flower girls were holding in their hand was transformed to orange. If you have ever been married you would know how much planning, effort and money goes into getting your theme and colour scheme correct for a wedding. 2. All our photos were so “grainy and noisy” that it made printing near impossible - we eventually excepted the reality that we will not be having our wedding photos printed as two companies offering printing services in Pretoria said that the quality is not suitable for printing. 3. There were a few photos that one could see she spent some time on, but the majority of the photos looked like they all just had a filter on them. Maybe she lost interest in finishing up our wedding photos - I wouldn’t know as she doesn’t respond to any form of communication. 4. Most of the filters that was used made the majority of our photos have an orange hue on them which not only added to the printing challenges but also gave everyone who attended our wedding an instant spray tan - not the good kind though, more like a Jersey S**** kinda tan. 5. General wedding stress and a built up lack of sleep pre-wedding added to some problem areas on my skin and dark rings around my eyes which one would expect a photographer to at least edit to make me look half decent on what seems to be the most important day of my life. And no, I was not expecting her to make me look like a Mens Health from cover model - just half decent. 6. There are even photos with Photoshop/Lightroom editing tools saved on the photo. 7. Her work on our wedding album lacked the quality we saw in her previous work that actually made us want her to shoot our wedding in the first place.

These are just a few of the many problems discussed in detail with our photographer via various emails and messages - which she took forever to respond to. To our surprise she did not take our critique of the final product she gave us lightly and responded rather defensive and referring to the agreed upon fee not being enough for her to spend any more time on the photos. She also took the time to refer to the terms and conditions of her contract - which we never received. We took the time to ask various seasoned photographers and printing companies an honest opinion about the quality of her work as we feared that we maybe had unrealistic expectations from a professional photographer. To sum up all the second/professional opinions on our wedding album as “amateur at best’ is an understatement. I finally requested that maybe its best for both parties that she just hand over all the raw footage and we will outsource the editing of our photos because she clearly seems to busy to be bothered at all - upon which she reacted and said its un-ethical for me to request that of her. So the latest update is that she will be seeking legal counsel in regards to the photos and I have been blocked from contacting her online, she does not answer my calls and Im lucky if I get one reply from every 10 messages I send her.

All this time I had to endure immature facebook posts directed at me and my wife - because we are all 12 years old after all, being bad mouthed behind my back - and yet my only sin sin was being verbal about the fact that I am not happy with my wedding photos.

So 4 months later I am at the mercy of the internet to please help in any way possible to get my photographer to please just hand over the raw footage of my wedding so I can maybe get someone else to edit these photos for me.

Also kids, think twice before quitting your 9 - 5 and taking your hobby and turning it into a full-time professional job. Passion means nothing with zero accountability and after sales service