AITA!!!
We hired…read moreLuis to do our wedding photography last November 23', we had hired him prior to do our nieces Quince so we knew he was on time and worked hard
We waited 2 months after our wedding before reaching out for our pictures, he stated that he was almost done with them, to give him til the end of the week, then a few more days, then he got sick. My wife and I are all about family and we understand that things in life happen. We had no rush to get our photos; around February we messaged again, and then around April-May he began posting on his IG, he seems better so we gave him more time, around July we reached out and no response, my wife and I were busy moving and having our life events, so again, no rush. LATE SEPTEMBER COMES and my wife reached out AGAIN, but this time she requested to have a talk about a partial refund, he ignored my wife's email for about a week and responded with something along the lines of "I had already sent you the link, your pictures were done a while back"; my wife and I checked her email, spam folder, text messages and missed calls....NOTHING! He used this email as a reason to not look bad, and to top it off, he sent us over 1,200 pictures, a lot, right? We liked about 5 pictures of us and about 12 of the whole 8+ hour wedding. Most of the photos are repeats. Imagine 1 picture, with an average of 5-7 duplicates and perhaps different filters on them. He had what appeared to be the same picture almost 20x with different filters.
I thought we were clear on the pictures we wanted but I guess we weren't because:
1) he didn't capture details from our wedding that we had asked for, like our whole wedding cake, sweethearts table, or handmade chandeliers that a friend gifted us for decorations,
2) the wedding cake and the toppers weren't fully visible, either the cake or the toppers are blurry, not 1 picture shows both just right. This was the same for other wedding details, like our wedding favors.
3) he captured maybe 2-3 events where we were happy to see our guests having fun, we loved those pictures, but the rest seems like our wedding had no "life" in it, which is difficult for a Mexican wedding of 200+ people to not have
4) our church! 1 thing we loved about our church were the colors that the sun rays give off once they hit these beautiful stained glass windows. Idk if he had the contrast too high or if it was during his editing, but there was no color in them! (Which should have been captured because people complemented our church, and I clearly remember seeing the beautiful green, yellow, blue, red light shining through these windows. There were a handful of pictures where he did capture a bit of the red, weren't great, but were nicer)
5) most of our pictures were high in contrast, had no color (we got married at an olive ranch, beautiful green trees, like 2 show the greenery, other than that, they're too bright!
6) he didn't capture a good close up of our first kiss at the church.
7) my wife had apparently insisted on him and made sure he understood that she wanted my first look reaction, which he later tried to stage.
I'm not gonna lie, we were probably difficult to work with, he stayed a lot longer than he should've, but I'd like to believe we treated him kindly and fairly.
Luis can work a lot better with posed photos, like with graduation shoots, but I would NOT recommend him for candids, weddings, or any big important events that are shot live. We feel like we were his guinea pigs for this wedding shoot.
And I have texted, called and emailed him VARIOUS TIMES! Even through social media, IG, and he has not tried to get a hold of us. He has been ignoring us for a long time. I doubt we'll be able to get any type of refund or fixed photos, and we still had our late engagement shoot with him (as part of the package we paid for), but I doubt it'll happen because he does not respond.
I wish I didn't have to leave a bad review, I hate to do this, since we got along well the day of, but we could've worked something out. He ROBBED us of some dear memories, I wish that could be an exaggeration, but unfortunately I suffer from a slight memory loss (from a TBI) where I must see proof to remember some things. This is the person you'll be working with if you hire Luis for a wedding.
Attached some pictures and I blurred peoples faces to protect their identities. These were some of the common style of pictures he took.
