I'll start off by saying that while we really like our wedding photos, I would not recommend hiring Marcin as your wedding photographer. It took almost 9 months to receive any of our photos, though we are extremely glad that we did finally receive them. During that time there was very little communication from Marcin (an email from him once every couple months on average). If you DO decide to hire Marcin, I'd HIGHLY recommend you make sure the contract he signs with you indicates a time frame to return the photos to you that you are comfortable with. Unfortunately we made this mistake by signing a contract with him that did not indicate a time frame (though he did indicate a time frame in an email afterwards which he surpassed by many months).
I'll try to explain a very long story into a few paragraphs...
Firstly, he showed up over an hour late to our initial meeting before we hired him. Maybe this should have been a red flag but he seemed genuinely apologetic and offered a $100 discount off his wedding photo package if we still wanted to hire him. We liked his style so we decided to go ahead with him.
Essentially after 6 months of waiting since our wedding day and barely any communication from Marcin after trying to contact him via various outlets (emails, phone calls, voice mails, text messages) we finally sent a registered letter to his address. We also eventually reached out to the police for advice as we were at our wit's end regarding what to do to receive our photos. We did not want to sue Marcin as this would only result in (possibly) receiving our money back; we only wished to get our wedding day photos. The only explanation we could come up with for such a delay and lack of communication was that he had maybe lost our photos somehow (?) and did not know how to break it to us. After Marcin received the registered letter in the mail and spoke with a police detective, he finally reached out to us via email and described that "the photos have been ready now for a bit and ready to be sent out" but since we accused him of possibly losing our photos and our "attempt to press criminal charges" (which we never attempted to do, only asked the police for advice), he was going to put mailing them out to us "on hiatus" so that he could give the letter to his "attorney for review".
Almost three more months passed and still no photos or any other communication from Marcin (besides 1 mass email apparently sent to all of his clients asking that we give him space in order to allow him to get everyone their photos). After more silence, I decided to try sending him another text message after almost 9 months since our wedding day... And he responded. He made it seem as though he thought he sent out the photos already and that a box containing a USB of our photos in his apartment was a "duplicate". And just like that, he sent a link to our wedding photos to view online and mailed out the USB containing our full-res wedding photos (which we received a few business days later). I was shocked, but so relieved we finally had our photos.
I will say that he showed up on time on our wedding day and did a great job taking photos. We really like his style of candid photojournalistic photos and his eye for details and the surroundings, which is why we hired him in the first place. My husband and I are both designers, so we had meticulously planned out a lot of the little details of our wedding including the venue and wanted our photographer to be one who was able to capture both the architecture of the venue as well as the candid moments.
His explanation for the long delay that he gave his clients in the mass emails he sent was that he was dealing with personal issues (which I do not feel need to be voiced here in a public forum). Unfortunately I still do not believe waiting almost 9 months for our wedding photos is in any way acceptable, as we all have our own personal issues we are dealing with. Communication is key, and to keep your clients waiting with barely any communication is not how one should manage their business.
After finally receiving our photos in the mail, he did apologize via text message and offer a 12"x18" complimentary canvas print of our favourite image. This was almost four months ago and we have not received anything, though we are not holding our breath.
TLDR; Waited almost 9 months for our wedding photos, with barely any communication from the photographer during that time. Would not recommend. read more