We had only disappointment and frustration with Mariann. We received her services as a gift and…read morescheduled our appointment. She first said she would scout out locations but then said she wouldn't be able to after all. My wife asked what the important criteria for a site were and then did research to figure out some good options. She sent Mariann a list of several options, with the details and pros/cons of each. Still, no site was selected. Mariann -- whom we still hadn't met -- then started sending us messages containing her private medical information, e.g., what her medical conditions were and what medications she could/couldn't take. A few days in advance, we asked if she needed to cancel the shoot due to her physical problems, and she said no. Then she did cancel at the last minute (the night before), including yet more private medical details. It made us feel uncomfortable to hear private medical drama from someone we didn't know, someone we were trying to have a professional relationship with. With two little kids and two adults to wrangle, the last minute cancelation was pretty inconvenient, but we tried to be understanding and scheduled a new date. Then, a couple weeks later, when it was time to actually have the shoot, she suggested we meet at a random nearby intersection (like when Google Maps shows you the geographical midpoint of a region, as opposed to any particular place), which showed again that she had put little to no thought or research into this, even though my wife helped her research locations much more than should have been necessary. The day of the shoot, she emailed and texted us many times, seeming to have a lot of trouble with basic geography and complaining about not knowing the area. The HOUR OF the shoot, we received half-a-dozen texts about the location, literally as we were trying to drive there (!). When we got to the location, my wife was almost in tears from frustration. Mariann walked up behind us as we were getting out kids out of the car and overheard us saying we just wanted to get this overwith. Having overheard this brief exchange, she completely freaked out and said she did not want to take our photographs anymore! After messing with our kids' schedule (not the photographer's fault, but shooting at sunset, when young children are typically having dinner and getting ready for bed, is a challenge for parents), forcing them into dresses, etc., we begged her to please take the pictures. We had to grovel and beg her in front of our kids not to storm off! After tons of attitude and threats, she finally agreed, but clearly either her professionalism or skills didn't show up. She didn't have any of the finesse you would expect from a family photographer in terms of getting good shots of the kids. She didn't take any initiative to work with them to get their attention or cooperation. After all the extended drama about the location (not sure why, since she easily could have picked one of the many places my wife recommended...) we ended up just wandering around without a good plan of where to take the pictures. We could see that the kids were getting very cranky, and the photographer had no plan or skill for wrangling them, so we ended the shoot after about an hour, thinking that any good shots should have happened by now. It was a very unpleasant experience. We hoped that at least it would all be worth it when we saw some good photos of our kids, but when we got them we were again disappointed. The kids' features were washed out, so badly that it was like their faces were pure white, and it was hard to even see where the face ended and the neck began. They looked really weird, not like themselves. We didn't get one good family shot, which isn't surprising, since she wasn't even telling us when to look or doing anything else to work with the kids. We were really disappointed by this experience. Mariann was unprofessional, caused us to waste our time, and frustrated us greatly; ending up with a lousy product to show for it. Find someone else.
UPDATE: She emailed after seeing this review to attack us in her typically unprofessional way. She's also trying to have this review taken down because she doesn't like it. Too bad, this is the truth, so be warned.
