I had a wedding in August and had hired Birgitta Lindsey to capture my special day and put a WOW package together for me. The day of the wedding arrives and I am unable to reach her as I hadnt heard from her since placing an up-front deposit. I was, of course, becoming very stressed out and worried that she was not going to show up. However, she did eventually show up with her assistant which turned out to be her daughter so I was able to relax, believing I was in the hands of a professional. Everything was moving along perfectly until about mid-way through the reception. It turns out that Birgitta had brought a laptop with her and had, unbeknownst to me, set up shop in the ladies restroom, of all places, and in between shots she was going into the restroom and downloading photos to the laptop and then deleting them off her camera to create more room.
When she would download the pics, she would then go back out to the reception leaving the laptop and other equipment unattended in the womens restroom. I was approached by one of my nephews who informed me that the laptop had been stolen, along with ALL the pictures from my wedding and the first half of the reception. I was determined not to let this ruin the most important day of my life to date and really was not in a mental state of mind to truly process what had just happened. Birgitta was distraught and crying over what had happened and apologized profusely. I told her that many of my friends and family had taken pictures and asked if she could use those to still put a package together for me and she agreed she would do that for me, in her words it was the least she could do. I spent over $150 printing the CDs and all the prints and placing them all on a disk for Birgitta so she could make a package for me.
But then everything went downhill from there. She would make appointments with me and then stand me up at the last minute or send me an email after Id already left to go meet her for an appointment. Each time she would cancel an appointment with me, she would say she had a migraine and couldnt make it, or she had some other problem. I finally managed to get the disk to her and then the battle began to actually get the completed work from her. I finally wrote her an email and told her that Id been very patient but that she wasnt doing what she had promised me and I was getting frustrated due to the fact that I had used up all my vacation time for my wedding/honeymoon and every time Id go to meet her, I was missing time from work. When I confronted her with this was when all hell broken loose. This was her response to me:
Ill have the CD dropped off at your workplace by the 14th. (I said that Id have it to you within the month, so youll have it within the month.) Ive put in weeks of time, stress & worry into this whold thing already & youre only concerned with your wedding pictures. Great, me too. But what about my daughters laptop?! Were out hundreds of dollars because of this whole mess & wheres the consolation for that? Shouldnt have left it in a public restroom. Not our problem. Pfffft. Yeah. Youre a real class act too. See ya.
Are ANY of you as stunned as I was? Who, in their right mind, leaves their equipment unattended in a public restroom??! It gets even better. When she does finally personally hand deliver the CD to my place of employment, I am out of town on a business trip, so she gives it to our desk person, who promptly opens it and the CD is wrapped in toilet paper with FECES on it! Lovely, eh? When I arrived back in town, I called the police and filed a report but I did not contact her. She apparently kept waiting for me to say something and when I did not, she could stand it no longer and this was the email I received from her:
So. Im wondering what to do with all of these reception shots. I still have them and am able to put together almost 100 more. Many are of you dancing with the flower girl & ring bearer as well as ther dollar dances and lots of hugs with the family, etc. But, Im tired of working for free, and if you want me to edit them (and even put together a reception DVD with a song of your choice, I can.) But not unless you pay the other $200.00. (And please dont write me back telling me you did pay me. It went to my daughter Ive worked completely for free.) Anyway, If I dont hear back from you, Ill assume not and clear up my hard drive, and we can go our separate ways. If you do want them, then youll need to pay the $200.00 up front first, no ifs, ands or buts, and Ill give you everything I have. (Which is a little over 100 reception images.) If I dont hear from you within the next 48 hours, Im deleting everything and moving on. Remember, I told you before, you get what you pay for! If you dont pay for them, you dont get them.
I think this woman is totally and completely out of her mind. Wait, I thought she had lost all the images? And she had already given me a disk that supposedly contained everything she had? Ive never seen anyone so unprofessional and now she is trying to extort more money from me after ruining EVERYTHING? I did take her to small claims court, and the judge said she was disgusted. She was crying and telling the judge that she couldnt function that she had a migraine and I just looked at the judge and rolled my eyes and told her that Id been dealing with this garbage since August. The judge ruled in my favor but did tell me, off the record, that I ought to get an attorney and go after her.
After the Judge rendered the verdict in small claims court, the Birgitta sent me an email telling me that I would NEVER get anything from her, despite the Judges orderand then followed it up with another email and told me that my new husband would cheat on me within a year! LOL You have to laugh, you know after all this, you MUST laugh or you might cry! The funny thing is that on these last two emails, after being in court and after she saw that I had copies of EVERYTHING, she sent the last two emails from, Im guessing here, a newly opened account with the name on it that said something like You Suck... Yeah, like the day we go to court and YOU lose, it isnt going to be clear who sent the email to me! LOL I know it sounds crazy, but as God is my witness, I have ALL these emails and I simply cannot believe that she has put these things IN WRITING to me she is certainly a candidate for psychotherapeutic meds!
I DID contact Judge Judy after receiving the feces covered disc NO JOKE. I thought if nothing else I could shame her into doing the right thing, that just MAYBE she would have an attack of conscience or something. Nope. This is what she wrote to me after being contacted by one of the shows producers:
Ill be tempted to countersue if you try to contine further action. Ive given you your merchandise, your photos, your DVD and we are so finished. How desparate are you to get on TV? Judge Judy, are you serious?! You can forget it. If its a lawsuit you want, we can go there, because Ive got grounds agains you for a countersuit, believe me. But youre absolutely not using me TO GET ON TV. You can forget it. And Im disgusted! If you have anything further youd like to discuss, you can call me personally, (like a big girl), and not have some television producer do it. How tacky. Youve reached an all new LOW. Absolutely disgusted.
Ummmm. Yeah, right. Id love to know what grounds she would think she has! Obviously, one judge already disagrees with her. Funny, I really wanted to say, No honey, I dont want to be famous, I want YOU to be famous! Really! You just have NO idea! But I didnt I didnt respond to her via email the next contact she had was a summons to appear in small claims court, where I prevailed based on all the evidence and she stormed out of the courtroom before the judge had completely finished speaking. The judge did speak with me afterwards and told me she was sorry she couldnt throw the book at her. She could only give me back what Id paid the photog so far.
So, this is where things were left. However, on Monday, February 1, I received ANOTHER email from Birgitta:
This is not going to be an easy letter to write, yet I feel the Lord putting it on my heart to do so, and so write it, I must. I think you know that I never, ever, set out to ruin your wedding. You know that, deep inside of your heart. I know youre a good person; I saw it at Starbucks and Ive only ever wanted the best for you and to do the best for you that I could. When two wild goats are on a high mountain, and the road is narrow, one must lower himself, and let the other pass. Without that, they both perish up on that lofty path. So Im going to lower myself, so that we can both try to heal from this. For some strange reason, God brought us together in life; for a weird, and uncomfortable moment, if nothing else, but HE has His reasons. Maybe He thought we have some stuff tucked away in our hearts that needed to be worked out - ugly things; and what better way to work out the ickiness than destroy something so precious as a wedding day! But it wasnt me that destroeyed that day, any more than it was you that stole *s laptop.
If we dwell on this crap, its gonna eat us up alive. Dont let it eat you up. I know youre strong, and you might think: PhhhIm so over it. But when youre pissed off at everything and everybody, youre so not over it. Have a great life, and be happy. If we go through life angry and bitter, weve missed the whole point. So Im going to pay you what you want. You get your money back. Which means that I shot your wedding for free, and spent many, many hours editing the pics as well as making a wedding DVD for you; lots of freebies there for you - but at least youre getting what you want, which is money. I do not want to see you in person; your false allegations in court and your wedding traumatized me and Im wanting nothing more than to put this awful experience behind me. If you set up a Paypal account, you can use your email address & I can send it directly to you online, which will then be transferred over. It will be documented, and Ill be able to keep it for my records that way. I will not mail it to you by mail, etc. If money is really what youre after, then this should be acceptable to you, as many, many, people do their business transactions this way. So, let me know your Paypal email address, and Ill have it to you within the next few weeks.
So this email above was really the final straw for me and now I have decided to put her on usacomplaints.com as well as let her peers know what she has done and her horrible attitude towards everything.
Birgitta has spoken on many occasions about the Lord. She stated when we first met that she thought that He had brought us together. Birgitta is now stating that she believes God may have destroyed my wedding day in order to work out some 'ugly things'... And I'd really like to address her comments about that.
Open letter to birgitta lindsey:
First, Birgitta, as a Christian, you ought to know what the Bible says about God's character... It says that God is NOT the author of confusion (1 Corinithians 14:33). God says that HIS plans for my life are for GOOD and not for evil (Jeremiah 29:11). I don't see anywhere in my Bible where God uses confusion and strife as a tool to accomplish His goals. I do, however, see where those particular tools are some of Satan's favorites... So, in my estimation, I would wager that the devil walked into my life and into my wedding with a camera! With that thought in mind, I'd appreciate it if you didn't slander God in order to cover for your own ineptitude and unwillingness to fully admit your own mistakes. Got it? Good. What I DO know, Birgitta, is that you made some absolutely horriffic judgment calls. No, I do not believe that you set out to ruin my wedding, but ruin it YOU DID. You, and you ALONE are responsible for what took place at my wedding. I hired YOU, did I not?
I paid YOU — and YOU were supposed to be a PROFESSIONAL... Correct? In light of that, how DARE you try to turn your lack of professionalism, your lack of judgment, and your total lack of understanding about customer service into your own personal sob story where I, as the bride, am supposed to feel sorry for you?! YOUR JOB as a PROFESSIONAL wedding photographer was to ensure that I was happy and that I had awesome memories of the most important day of my life. DID YOU DO THAT??? NO!!! Have you stopped, for even a second, to THINK Birgitta, about what you ACTUALLY DID? And some of the follow-up comments that you made? You want to know my all-time FAVORITE comment that you made to me? Are you ready...?"... Youre only concerned with your wedding pictures!" Birgitta Lindsey, Tuesday, September 8 14:37: 25 -0700 (PDT) NO KIDDING?! This, Birgitta, shows how UTTERLY out of touch with reality you are! OF COURSE that was all I was concerned about!!! THAT is what I hired YOU for... You weren't doing me a FAVOR! I paid you money to do the job! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DELIVER!!!
You really ought to know that when you do a GOOD job that your clients will RAVE about you to their friends and family and ANYONE else who they run across who might be getting married. They will give you more exposure and market you more eloquently than you could ever do yourself. Plus, they have the TRUST of their friends, family and acquaintences... And a whole album on which to brag on you. But... What about the wedding photographer who is a walking nightmare? Let's just say that an UNHAPPY customer will tell TEN TIMES as many people. They will do things, Birgitta, that you would never DREAM of in a million years... Like tell everyone you know... Tell half the city. They will tell anyone they can get to listen to them... Because they are... Angry. Hurt. Betrayed. You just have NO idea, do you? This is SO NOT ABOUT MONEY!!! And I want to make something REALLY clear here... No wedding photographer in their right mind sets up shop in a public restroom and then leaves expensive equipment UNATTENDED... And then feigns shock when it is stolen! And I don't care what your excuse is. The end does NOT justify the means! I don't care what you 'tried' to do... You ended up causing me UNTOLD heartache! And then to add insult to injury, I'm supposed to feel badly for YOU because you were so foolish to leave your equipment unattended??? What world are you living in?! And NO, this isn't about money.
From DAY ONE this has been about your complete and utter FAILURE to take responsibility for your actions - and about your complete and utter FAILURE to do what you said you would do. You cancelled appointment after appointment and then got offended with me when I finally had reached my limit with you and pointed out, in my own way, that I needed you to behave like a professional and follow through! All you have done, Birgitta, is make excuses for your behaviour and inconvenience me! This entire situtation was caused by your carelessness and negligence. You failed to even use ORDINARY CARE for your equipment and the memories of my wedding day, which YOU were HIRED to PRESERVE!!! You inconvenienced me by making me chase you around in order to get things done that YOU should have been spot on about. Do you get that? It means that YOU should have been chasing ME down to do the RIGHT THING, Birgitta. However, it does not appear that you have a clue about what you've done.
So, NO. I'm not going to take your little bait stick. I'm not going to go out of my way to open any kind of special account for you to do the right thing - or for you to do what the judge ordered you to do. You're a big girl, you figure it out. I called Judge Judy in order to SHAME YOU into accepting responsibility. No, I didn't want fame, Birgitta... I wanted YOU to have fame... Or is it infamy? But of course, you turned it around and tried to make it look like all I wanted was money. It is apparent that you've never 'gotten it', that you still aren't 'getting it' and I seriously doubt whether you'll EVER 'get it'. And while we are on the subject of God? I would suggest, Birgitta, that you take a good, long, hard look at what you are calling 'false accusations'. I said nothing in that court room that wasn't absolutely and completely 100% true. I can stand and look at myself in the mirror without an ounce of shame... And without getting a migraine... CAN YOU? There are these litte words... Honor, honesty, truth, integrity... Go look them up and see if maybe you can't find SOME WAY to apply them to your life. I might have put up with your written insults in the past, Birgitta... But I can assure you, your little game is done. You are 100% in the wrong... Not only for your actions on my wedding day, but for your subsequent attitude and behavior. You have turned something that could have been salvaged into a public relations NIGHTMARE for yourself. Congratulations.
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