Seriously think about if Peter's methods of "working" with clients is what you want to deal with…read moreafter your wedding day!
At first, everything started out OK. Peter met us at a coffee shop to go over portfolios, pricing, etc., and we decided to sign a contract with him. He asked for a list of specific photos/moments/people groupings we would like captured on our wedding day, and we provided that to him in advance.
Unfortunately, the photographers missed quite a few of the moments/people groups that we requested. For example, I didn't have any pictures with each of my bridesmaids individually, and my maid of honor was my sister. It would have been nice to at least have one of the two of us. We specifically requested a "first look" photo--since there were two photographers, we asked that one camera be aimed at my husband's face when he first saw me in my wedding gown. Instead, one camera was aimed at my front and the other at my back. In one photo, you can see my husband's face over my shoulder, but it was taken when I was almost to him. There were several others that we missed, like none were taken of our vocalist and of the moment we were pronounced "husband and wife". Of course, on your wedding day, you're not necessarily focused on which photos are taken with who--that's why we gave him a list--and you would expect key parts of the wedding ceremony to be captured.
After the wedding day, Peter insisted on dealing with us via email only. We had to select the photos for our album, the album style, two photos that were supposed to be gallery-framed for our wall, and one extra that was supposed to go in a signable matte. Phone calls were not returned, so any questions we had had to be handled via email.
We gave Peter a complete list of all the photos we wanted to see in our album (in order) and which prints we wanted. We never received our prints or album. The first draft of the album he put together and sent to us via email had duplicate photos and missing photos. We even provided a photo one of our guests took of the "husband and wife" moment because he didn't take one, but he didn't include that in the first draft. We also requested all photos to be in color, but some B&W images were included. Finally, the images that were included didn't make sense in the way they were presented with page breaks, etc., and were out of order. We requested that they be in the order given to reflect the flow of the day.
When we saw the first draft of the album, we were very disappointed. We sent a page-by-page list of corrections that needed to be made, and pointed out the missing pictures and mix of B&W and color.
It took quite some time before we received a 2nd draft. It still had missing photos, and I can't remember what else was wrong with it. Again, I replied with a list of corrections.
We had tried calling Peter to get things straightened out, but he didn't return phone calls, and insisted on communicating via email. In the mean time, two years went by, and we encountered emails that bounced back to us as undeliverable, and emails that didn't bounce back were either ignored or responded to very slowly (sometimes taking a month or more).
When nearly THREE YEARS lapsed and we still hadn't received a satisfactory version of our album (we prepaid for $400 credit towards our album) or the framed photos we prepaid for, we really wanted to just meet with him and get the album hammered out. We had asked for him to go ahead and send the prints repeatedly, but we STILL don't have them (and we've been married 3.5 years as of this review), and we thought it would be more efficient if we all met and designed the album together instead of going back and forth with email. We live about 1.5 hours away from Peter but gave him an open availability of any weekend, any time, at any location of his choosing, for the remainder of 2012 (at that time, he would have had about 6 months of weekends), but he said he was busy and that he would only work with us via email. After that, we've been unsuccessful in sending any emails to him, since they bounce back as undeliverable. He does not return phone calls.
The one positive thing I have to say is that the photos we received copies of on DVD are beautiful. I'm glad we at least got that--I've made a couple small albums for us on Shutterfly. Unfortunately, his time at the wedding and the DVD copies were the only part of our contract that were fulfilled. We were married June 21, 2009, and 3.5 year later, we are still waiting for our album, two framed photos, and one 8x10 to go inside our signable matte. I just wanted to write this review so you don't make the same mistake we did by signing with Peter John Photography. (I waited to write this review to avoid offending Peter so that we might receive our products, but we are running out of hope.)
