The experience that my husband and I had with Dawn Elizabeth Photography began great. Dawn herself was very kind and I believe her mother Maryann was as well. We waited too long to begin some of our wedding plans and needed a photographer asap. Dawn Elizabeth was listed in the book for the venue The Waterfall, where we got married. An employee of the Waterfall had stated to us that they "Did not understand why Dawn Elizabeth was listed". But we had already paid for her. I spoke with Dawn and she suggested for our engagement photos we should go to a location she uses because of how beautiful the nature and landscaping was. My husband then spoke to her and wanted to go to Wildwood, NJ. After some time he agreed to go to where Dawn suggested. He said he could tell she did not want to travel and talked him out of it but he eventually agreed.
We ended up meeting at this location. I had high wedges and had to take them off every time we walked then put them back on because it was complete dirt, rocks and sticks and I wasn't able to walk being in high wedges. Dawn's reaction was "I should have told you to bring shoes too". That was very annoying but obviously I survived. She had us stand in some type of bush and my husband expressed he was worried about ticks and she said no one has ever gotten one of them. I called Dawn and told her my husband found a tick on him and her reaction was like we were being dramatic and she didn't believe us. We just wanted to let her know.
The biggest reason as to why I would never recommend Dawn Elizabeth Photography is because we felt as if she in a way tricked us into paying for extra prices added or that could be added when it came down to purchasing our photos. When we were shown our wedding album she had told us a while before that we could add a few extra pages that would cost more. We never agreed to it but knew about this. However, when she showed us our album we loved it but at the very end she said that the last few pages cost extra. My husband was upset because instead of just showing us what we paid for and asking if we wanted to add any other ones she included them and made us think that that was what we were getting, that we already paid for. We agreed to keep everything but afterward we talked about it and decided that we wanted to take them out because of the price changing dramatically. We met up again via Zoom meeting and decided to keep everything because we had already loved it and felt like it wouldn't be the same removing the pages. We were still upset about this.
We ordered a large print for our engagement and was told if we wanted it sooner we could pick it up. We live in PA and she lives in NJ. It is an hour away and that was fine at the time but when we got to her house we realized that the location we had our photos taken at for the engagement was literally right around the corner from her house. This was extremely frustrating because my husband felt like she talked him out of it because it was super convenient for her.
The day of the wedding the photographers came and took the photos according to the schedule that we had created. Eventually at some point I had contacted Maryann and asked when they would be completed, including the large print. She said they were working on it; however, the large print was ready and we could pick it up or have it shipped for an extra charge of $20.00. Maryann stated on the phone that we would have to wait longer for sometime but didn't know how long if we picked it up because everyone at their house had Covid. I understand that we said we would pay for it to be shipped but the fact that there seemed to never be an estimated time for getting things or because the company that they used was backlogged was the main reason why we chose to ship it. There just always seemed to be an excuse for everything. I also paid extra for a photo to be "played around with". Where Dawn could add artwork to it and make it fun. I told Maryann that I couldn't care less about the photo. We just wanted to be completely done with them. read more
