What we have to say at first: we love Jay! Both his photography works and his personality.
We hired Jay for our engagement photoshoot back in April 2013 and we eventually also hired him for our wedding shoot this year in June. He did awesome jobs.
We Googled for photographers in the Bay Area and narrow down to about 10 photographers on our interview list. To be honest, Jay wasn't the top choice of my list (sorry Jay) when we contacted him because he didn't have that many wedding pictures samples online. But my wife insisted to consider him because she loves his fashion work. While we were hesitating whether we should hired him, his quick response impressed me. My wife pointed out that a photographer that shoot different things probably has more experiences.
Here came another story but long story short, we didn't hire Jay at the end of our interviews but another well-known with more reviews and more pictures posted online. His price wasn't cheap but we bet on him for our very precious memory. Money wasted, period. We were really upset with the photographer and his works. While all his pictures are nice online but the final product for us were really crappy. That dude was really rude while he was directing us in the engagement shoot. Luckily it was only for our engagement shoot and we decided to fire that photographer and hire Jay to redo our engagement shoot.
We showed Jay the edited pictures from the previous guy when we interviewed with him and told him how disappointed we felt. Jay didn't just go with our words and discredit that photographer like us. He only politely discusses the images with us and pointed out the pros and cons of the previous guy's work. He even helped us to rescue few of them even those are not his work.
Jay's politeness definitely moved us so we decide to hire him immediately after the interview.
Jay recommended adding few other locations while we wanted to shoot in the original spot. We love the pictures and these location shoot added interesting and fun moments we had never expected.
Jay talks straight forward and he always informs us literally everything. He told it would take him a month for delivering the engagement. We kept waiting but couldn't help calling him at the end of the two weeks. We were a bit upset when Jay replied that he did not touch our pictures at all. But he then told us that he will try delivering few pictures that night and we did get the few pictures. At the end of the fourth week, Jay sent me an email updating the finished pictures was on its way to our home. We got the DVD and the quality of the pictures are absolutely day and night's difference compare to the first guy we had hired. Well worth the wait. Thank you Jay for being so professional.
After the engagement shoot with Jay, we assumed he would be our photographer for the wedding date and totally forgot to confirm with him. Mid November 2013, Jay called me asking whether we still want to hire him for the wedding date in June 2014 because he is getting inquiry from others about the availability on the same date and we never confirmed. I told Jay: you are the guy for our wedding shoot, no doubt. I really appreciate all this little details things that Jay did for us.
Since the review is so long that I need to cut it shorter. On the wedding date, Jay was available whenever we need him. He always paid attention to us. He never got angry about our friends getting in his way to take pictures. He only asked us to notice few friends with cameras that he should be the main guy. He gave us advises on how to do everything in the wedding. He was like a director of our show.
On top of the wedding shoot, my wife now always praises Jay not only for his works but also his personality. During our wedding date, Jay mingled so well with our groomsmen and bridesmates that everyone thought he is part of the wedding team and forgot he is working there. They also praise Jay's patient for their request of helping them taking photos with their iPhones. Now we became friends after a year because we keep bugging him to come out for dinner with us.
At the time I am writing this review, we had also received our final wedding date pictures from him. O.M.G., we love the pictures.
Thank you Jay for everything. You ROCK! read more