I did not have a positive experience with Cambrella, and ended up not going through with using them for a family photo session due to their poor communication leading up to our planned session.
Here is a timeline of events leading up the cancellation:
4/17 - A family member purchased us a gift certificate with Cambrella
4/27 - I was expecting to receive an email from Cambrella reaching out with additional details but did not receive anything, so I initiated an email asking about next steps to redeem the gift certificate.
5/5 - No response, so I followed up again.
5/9 - Received email from Mario with next steps.
5/14 - I replied to let them know I would probably hold off on booking a session until the Fall when the weather was cooler. Asked what their availability was in Sept. or Oct. and if they had recommended venues. No response. I was starting to get a little frustrated at this point, but figured it was still a few months before I really needed to reserve a date, so I brushed it off.
9/9 - I reached out again to lock down a date, which we did over the course of a few days. Our session was confirmed for 10/14, and Mario recommended 2 locations and said he would send samples so I could choose the best one for our session.
10/1 & 10/7 - Sent follow up emails for the samples, and no response.
10/11 - Sent email cancelling our session and requesting a refund for the gift certificate. At this point, it was 3 days before our session, and I still did not know where we were supposed to meet since we did not have a location chosen. It had almost been 1 month since we last communicated, and he still did not send us samples as promised. Mario emailed the next day (ironically, the quickest he's ever responded throughout this entire process), and said he was out of the country for a family emergency. I am understanding of this, but would have appreciated a quick note to just say he was unavailable and would get back to us later. We finally got the refund 1 month later.
Perhaps the slow responses were because we'd already "paid" for the services via gift card, and we were just not a high priority customer. However, Cambrella's lack of communication reflected poor professionalism, and I no longer had confidence in their delivery of quality photos. read more