This is a review for our experience with hiring Life Gallery Studio for our wedding which took…read moreplace on May 31st, 2013. We chose Life Gallery based on their excellent reviews on weddings specialist sites such as Wedding Wire, which we have since learned are policed by the vendors themselves, so only extremely positive reviews are posted and the negative reviews are "disputed" which means they are suspended from the site, often indefinitely. We had a nice initial consolation with the owner Scott, who emphasized their speciality in taking candid shots during weddings, which was something we were really interested in. They offer nice albums and a decent range of packages ranging from 4 hours on up. "Seems reasonable," we said. Contract signed. Day of the wedding, our photographer, Ronda, showed up on time. She was a bit idiosyncratic and rough around the edges, but we figured, "hey, she's an artist, let her do her thing." It was extremely hot that day and she marched us around the vineyard where our wedding took place, often shouting at us, "Don't move! I'll tell you when to move!" when she found the lighting to be favorable. She struggled mightily to remember my wife's name throughout the ceremony despite repeated reminders. Seemed like a fairly basic ask for such an important day, but we were more concerned about the photographic results. At the reception, Ronda seemed bored and listless. We added a few hours to her workload at $150/hour, included dinner and let her know to feel free to help herself to a drink. Which she did. She then seemed to forget she was working and spent the back end of the reception, mostly seated and not taking photos. Guests asked her, "Ronda, why aren't you taking photos?" "It would be awkward while you're eating," she said in reply. Um, maybe awkward for Ronda, but the guests would have welcomed it...that's. why. we. hired. a. photographer. Life Gallery knew beforehand that the entire reception was a dinner and that was the task, so Ronda should not have been disappointed by the lack of a Bollywood style reception with tigers jumping through rings of fire. They never voiced any concerns before the event took place. "Let's see what photos she got," I said, "before we complain, maybe we'll be surprised." Well, the results were less than spectacular. The role of photos ranged from a few very nice shots, to many mediocre, and even more amateurish. Each table had flowers on it, which she captured wonderfully, but often at the expense of our guests' faces. Another highlight includes the back of the groom's head as he hugs his father, whose face is obscured by the back of the groom's head. That's the type of "candids" she got. We expressed our disappointment to Scott afterwards, who made no attempt at apologies or even understanding, and didn't even acknowledge the root of our dissatisfaction. "Most people only care about 20 shots to make an album," he said. Somehow we feel shortchanged by that after paying over a grand. It's entirely possible our experience was an outlier. As Scott said, they are very well reviewed online. Perhaps, that's because they spend so much time disputing any less than stellar ones on review sites. Here's hoping my review survives on Yelp, so other couples might be spared a less than positive experience on their wedding day, and cloudy, obscured, memories afterwards, marked by frustration. Luckily, we have the photos our friends and relatives took, which on the whole, represent a superior collection of work than what we got from Life Gallery Studio. Send me a message for samples of their work.

They say there is always something that goes wrong on your wedding day, and choosing Life Gallery…read morewas ours. I am writing this review as we just celebrated our 1 year anniversary. Throughout this year, I kept telling myself that I needed to write this. It's tough to sit down and bring up negative feelings towards your wedding day, and then to channel those into words. But I also couldn't let it go. Throughout this past year, we never printed a single photo. We never publicly shared our wedding photos. Only a few people saw our photos, and even they were disappointed. Our photographer Mike and owner Scott completely failed us. We got married on Halloween 2020. Prior to the wedding, we are asked to create a list of the things that were our must-have photos (which we also reviewed with Mike day of). One of our biggest photo "wants" was lots of pictures of our senior golden retriever Bubba. We didn't know how much time we have left with him so we wanted pictures of him with everyone. We spent a lot of time and money decorating our wedding venue, so naturally our decorations were on there. I even asked Mike how his camera was at night time (since our reception was after dark) and he assured me it was great. I also spent a lot of time carving approximately 30 foams pumpkins for a haunted house I put together, which was also on my list. My husband even built me a large custom cooler shaped like a coffin! We bought glow sticks to light it up at night. We were disappointed in the lack of Bubba pictures. He was only photographed in a few different settings despite being there all night. There is not a SINGLE photo of our decorations at night, nor are there any of the pumpkins lit up, or any of the coffin cooler once it was put together for the reception. Looking at the photos, Mike went around the venue before the ceremony and took pictures of our decorations prior to being setup/lit up. Guess he figured he could check them off the list then? I have one photo of my custom coffin cooler, and it's still closed with a box of glow sticks sitting next to it. We had discussed Mike staying an hour past his time at the start of the day. He said we could see how everything was going. He came to find me promptly at the original leaving time to say he got everything and goodbye. Had I known how much he missed, I would've had him stay that extra hour. Mike never utilized any of the decorations in the photos. He had us taking some of our family photos in front of the bridal suite instead of using the graveyard right next to us. I had to tell him to move because it wasn't a good spot. Scott's excuse was that Mike did it for the lighting. It's a Halloween wedding! Who cares about how lit up the bridal suite is, I wanted dark and spooky. When I brought up these issues with Scott, he said he wasn't going to BS us, but that's all he did. He tried to tell me that you can't photograph jack-o-lanterns! I've been carving pumpkins for 20+ years and always take photos of them. He never did anything to try and make it better for us, so be warned if you have an issue with them. He said he "found" more photos, but they were actually the photos they considered rejects and discarded. Now we have to take the time to dress up, decorate, and shoot our pictures all over again with a different company. We would never recommend Life Gallery!!!

Larry is a great photographer to work with. His work speaks for itself and added to that, he is…read morepersonable with a very collaborative work style. My company operates furnished short-term rental apartments and I can honestly say that the photos Larry shot for us of the apartments contribute to the fact that our units are always booked. I highly recommend his photography services.

Larry recently did photography for my military wedding. The photos are incredible. Of the nearly…read more500 photos, all look album-ready before editing! He shot our wedding in a chapel with challenging light - most cell phone pictures were dark. He spent the time testing the light and they came out perfectly even before editing! He also did candid shots of our reception and event afterwards. He had so many wonderful pictures of family and friends, I can't wait to share with other people! On top of all of that he and Carol were so warm and easy to work with, they made my day extra special. They were as much a part of the wedding as capturing it. Thank you Larry!

Beware** I had to…read morecancel our ice luge last minute!!! I was called just hours before my party and told that I needed to pick up the luge an hour earlier than agreed upon because he wants to go to the beach. I called back to work out a compromise on the time and before I could finish my sentence I was aggressively told that he does not have time to talk to me about it and if I can't pick it up earlier he will just cancel it (3 hours before guests would arrive!) I was already stressed with setting up for my 30th birthday and was yelled at by an unprofessional business owner. Thank goodness I didn't have my heart and my guests expectations set on having the luge or it could have put a huge damper on the party. My advice: spend your money at a professional business that won't botch your party!

Bob is amazing and so are his ice luges. They are a must have for all of our parties and have been…read morefor years. We have had these done for multiple birthdays, holiday and Christmas parties and our friends always look forward to them. Bob is very accommodating, professional and just an all around good person. We absolutely love working with Hot Ice and will continue to let Bob's creativity add a fun twist to our parties.

Jerry photographed my son's Bar Mitzvah two years ago. He came to the synagogue and did the formal…read more"bimah shots". He then covered the party at Normandie Farms, a local restaurant. The results were stunning. Jerry is a professional with many years of experience and it shows. We will definitely hire him again should the opportunity arise.

Jerry is an artist! He shot the most incredible photographs of my daughter's 1 month old baby. It…read morewas such a fun photo shoot too. No fuss or pressure and the results were AMAZING! Jerry took his time and just start snapping photos. He captured shots of the baby smiling. The lighting was amazing. We love all the photos he shot - - seriously. If you need a photographer, do yourself a favor and call Jerry!

Charles was so professional and everything went so smoothly! So easy to work with time and time…read moreagain!

Working with Charles was a complete pleasure from start to finish. His knowledge and vision helped…read morebring our project to life! He is a pleasure to work with. He's incredibly professional, but by the end of our project, I felt like he was my friend. Looking forward to working with C King media again soon.

This was definitely our best photo shoot ever! Our photographer, Rudy, was very professional. Apart…read morefrom being punctual to the exquisite shoot venue he meticulously chose for this exercise, he paid attention to every detail, exemplifying all the entrepreneurial attributes of one who is both profoundly passionate and knowledgeable about his work. Little wonder, the pictures came out so good. In fact, the shots are so delightsome they will easily make the front page of Vogue magazine (Not kidding). If we have to do this again, we will gladly have no other than Rudy Mathews be our photographer! The dude is gooooood! Mr. and Mrs. Joseph

I absolutely love love love Rudy! Rudy is extremely professional and a true artist. He has mastered…read morethe craft of photography. I love working with him and the quality of his photos are unbelievable. I look forward to working with him again.

My husband and I couldn't be happier with our decision to hire Carl Elixir for our wedding day! We…read moreopted for the 8-hour package with both photography and videography, and it was absolutely the perfect choice. Ash (photographer) and Ched (videographer) did an incredible job of capturing every detail and emotion of our special day. They were professional and a joy to work with. They made us feel at ease throughout the entire process, from the first look to the last song during the reception. The photos and video are absolutely stunning. Ash captured the essence of our wedding, from the romantic ceremony to the fun and laughter of the reception. We've already gotten so many compliments from our friends and family on the beautiful photos and videos. If you're looking for a talented and professional photographer/videographer team to capture your wedding day, look no further than Carl Elixir. Aside from the incredible final product, the team was very responsive and addressed my concerns and helped me execute my vision for the wedding day!

My wife has seen Carl's work all over social media, and she's been admiring his style even when she…read morewas single. So when we started to look for a wedding photographer, we thought of him first. He's slightly more expensive than others, but he is worth every penny spent! If possible, I would recommend talking to him before even booking your venue because he's so experienced with the DMV area and knows so many good venues that would be photogenic. He's responsive, on time, and very professional. For example, on our wedding day, my mother's makeup was running late, but my wife wanted to get a picture with her before we headed out to the first look. Based on his years' experience, Carl immediately told the makeup artist just to put on the lipstick first for my mother and snapped a few shots for us. Even now, my mother still mentions how great and decisive he was that day! Carl was funny, decisive/efficient, and great with all my wedding party (including our 3-year-old flower girl), as well as with both sides of parents. His ability to speak Mandarin Chinese was the cherry-on-top, as he could communicate with many of our guests that way! His assistant Chuck (who covered me & the groomsmen during getting-ready) was also excellent; he made sure we all felt comfortable and natural in front of the camera by laughing along with us and being extremely personable. And with the extra hour we paid for his shooting, we ended up getting quite a few more really good pics. We were so delighted with the leather-bound printout album that include our 40 favorite pictures. Carl was the best wedding vendor we had, and he'll prove it to you that he's worth every penny!

Huy and his team went above and beyond for our wedding day. They made us feel special, kept us…read morelaughing, and made sure to capture as much of our day as they possibly could, not to mention how creative they were with the shots. We couldn't have asked for a better team of photographers for such a special moment. Huy also completed and sent our photos to us super quickly which was a huge plus! We highly recommend if you're looking for a skilled photographer who cares about capturing your important memories.

0 complaints. On the contrary…read more.. My husband and I used Huy D. Tran Photography for our very first family photos and wow what an experience! Huy went above and beyond to ensure this was an experience of a lifetime, a lasting memory, one we would never forever. And he succeeded. Huy kept an open line of communication, he was punctual, creative, incredibly patient with our little one, kind, has a sense of humor, transparent, professional and interpersonal. We connected instantly. He delivered the photos way earlier than promised although he had back to back shoots happening that week. He managed our expectations well and it was evident he knew what he was doing and had years of experience in the industry. All in all, thank you Huy! These photos will be in our family for generations to come. We can't wait for our next family shoot with you. Best shoot ever. I'm in love. We did that. All 4 of us. You're officially our family's photographer. So glad we found you. Stuck with us now!