Date: 2019.02.18
Review: The One Bridal
Service Purchased: Wedding and Engagement Photography
Score: 3.2 / 5.0
This is going to be a lengthy piece to reflect my mixed feelings about One Bridal's photography service. The One Bridal did a lot of good/great work but the long waiting at the end reduced my overall satisfaction.
Let me start with the pre-photo shoot. We shopped around and talked to a few vendors before selecting One Bridal for our photography. I was impressed by their marketing and a number of wedding photo albums they had on their slideshows. One Bridal also offered competitive market rates for photography. Communications were excellent in the beginning and they were transparent about the timing of when they collected payments and when they will provide the photos (usb), album and canvas. For this part One Bridal scores 4.5 / 5.0
The photographer who took the photos was Joseph. He worked alone for our engagement photos in 2018 Spring and he had an assistant who helped take additional photos at our wedding in 2018 Summer.
Our engagement photos were taken at Main Street Unionville. I was responsible for buying a permit for the location but there were no issues with getting the date & time we liked, meeting with the photographer, or weather. Joseph was both photographer and director as we walked around the location took photos The engagement photo shoot was scheduled to be one hour in length and took longer (around 1.5 hour) to complete, so I was happy when Joseph was able to give us some extra time to take all the photos. We had to do some walking and some of the photos we had to take a few times over but overall the day went well. For this part Joseph scores 4.0 / 5.0
Our wedding photos were taken at a banquet hall in Markham. The day and photo shooting started earlier for us as our party had some additional activities in the morning. Joseph & team had no issues with meeting us at a private residence near the banquet hall then relocating to the banquet hall afterwards. Since it was wedding day, there were a lot of activities and a lot of photos. The photography team took photos of us, our bridal party, our family, our guests, and our venue. Over a thousand photos were taken that day (given the large volume some photos were excellent, so good and some bad - that was to be expected). When reviewing the photos afterwards one observation I had is there were a few photos with large groups where a few people were somewhat blocked by others. The whole day went by a blur but I probably should have stayed for more photos with our guests after the ceremony. The photography team worked a full day, ate lunch and dinner with us and mostly did a good job. For this part Joseph and team scores 4.0 / 5.0
For me, the biggest challenges started after all our photo shoots were completed and 100% of the balance was paid. We were hoping to get all the photos (usb) and album about 3 months after our wedding. However, it took us around 5 months to get our usb and around 6 months to get the album (we got our canvas early so that was not an issue). During the waiting time communication with the vendor was inconsistent (longer turnaround times for phone call / emails). My main takeaway from the waiting experience is perhaps I should not pay the full balance until the final piece of product is received. For this part One Bridal scores 1.0 / 5.0
Overall, there were some communications challenges (it is fair to say it applied for both sides and I contributed to those challenges as I got more frustrated with waiting) and some lengthy waiting but we got what we agreed upon (our canvas photo, our wedding album and our usb key with all photos) and I am mostly satisfied with the product.
3.2 / 5.0
David Wu read more