My wife and I were planning a wedding for June 25 (by the way, it is February 8 and we still don't have photos). My in-laws were paying for the wedding so my mother-in-law and wife set up an appointment with Always Perfect / Lindelle Studios. My mother-in-law has heard horror stories about the small mom-and-pop wedding photographers who take your money, take the pictures, and disappear. To avoid this, she decided that a safe option would be the company advertising in David's Bridal - Always Perfect / Lindelle Studios. After at least one appointment, my mother-in-law signed a contract with Always Perfect / Lindelle Studios on January 24. More than 15 months prior to the wedding! At the time, Always Perfect / Lindelle told my mother-in-law that it was too early to assign a photographer and that they would have someone get in touch as the time gets closer to discuss our wishes and needs for the wedding day.
Fast forward to June - three weeks before the wedding. My mother-in-law has not heard from Always Perfect / Lindelle so she decides to place a call to them. She gets a hold of Bob Shake who is supposedly higher up and he assures her that everything is ok and that we would be contacted shortly by the actual photographer. After a week or so, she started calling daily leaving messages for Bob with no response.
Three days before our wedding, my mother-in-law got a phone call from the actual photographer that was to do our wedding. He told her that he had just been assigned to our wedding and that he wanted some details on what we were expecting. She really didn't get a good vibe from the guy but, at this point, what were the options?
The morning of the wedding, the photographer was to be at my wife's house to take pictures of all of the girls getting ready and take some family pictures with the bride. He was there an hour early and hung around inappropriately while everyone was still showering! At the time that he was scheduled to be there to take pictures and everyone was ready, the photographer was not! His one battery was dead and needed to be charged! When they started taking the pictures, it became blatantly evident that this guy was not a wedding photographer. He took many pictures on the rear deck in the direct sunlight where everyone is squinting! He took pictures on the front porch with the porch light still on! He took pictures inside where the subject is simply a silhouette because of the sunlight pouring in the window from behind.
My introduction to the photographer wasn't a great one either. I stood at the front of the church watching the rest of the bridal party come down the aisle. As my wife and her father entered the church, the photographer came running up a side aisle and darted across in front of me at the front of the church. He tripped over the runner and screwed it all up! My best man, my uncle, and myself scrambled to fix the runner before they started up the aisle. It wasn't that big of a deal but it was certainly a sign of things to come!
Throughout the entire wedding ceremony this photographer was trapsing all over the church. At a few times I think he actually got up onto the altar. Call me old-fashioned but I believe that there is a certain respect that comes with being in a church and he violated that respect that the church deserves. He didn't have a tripod either. The constant flashes were distracting but we were willing to deal with it. However, the pictures came out blury, too bright, or just the subject with darkness around them. I was embarassed to have this clown romping around the church taking flash photographs all over the place. When it came time for the blessing of the rings, the photographer actually got between the priest and the rings! The picture didn't come out all that great anyway as it looks like a "Bat Photo" - the weird angle that you'd expect to see in Batman and not in a wedding album! The priest and most of the rest of those attending the wedding noticed how obnoxious this particular act was. As my wife and I were sitting toward the end of the ceremony just enjoying ourselves quietly, this guy starts waving at us from the side of the altar for us to look over for a picture. That photo was decent but so obviously staged. To cap it all off, at the end of the ceremony as we were about to walk back down the aisle, the photographer came up to me and whispered in my ear to give him a minute for him to get to the back of the church and plug his camera in since the battery was dead!
After the ceremony, we wanted to get the typical pictures on the altar. We went into the crying room in the back of the church to let everyone filter out so that we could make our way back to take formal pictures on the altar. As we waited, the photographer started shooting off photos in the crying room - with horrible lighting, kids' crayon drawings on the wall, and other miscellaneous stuff hung on the wall behind us. When we were ready to go back into the church to take the photos, he wasn't ready because his camera was dead - he had wasted what battery he had on the pictures in the crying room! We were forced to move on to the park where we wanted informal pictures while he charged his battery and he would meet us there.
To fully appreciate how aggravating the park was, you have to understand that it was probably 97 degrees on this particular day and we were all in dark tuxes and the girls were wearing long dresses. We arrived at a little gazebo in the middle of the pond and he started taking pictures. A few of the bridal party including myself inquired about the "No Fishing" sign that was directly behind us as he was taking photos. His response was simply something along the lines of "they'll take care of that" so we assumed that it would be photoshopped out. The sign showed up in the proofs. He kept us there at the park taking several photos for nearly a half hour in the heat. This caused us to be late to the reception hall where the cocktail hour was nearly over when we arrived.
During the reception, there were a few times that the manager at the hall had to run interference to give my wife and I a break from this guy. He was keeping us from visiting with friends and family to take pictures - and not-so-good ones at that! Several female friends and family were made uncomfortable by the photographer by comments made.
My mother-in-law had a party back at their house after the reception and the photographer invited himself! My father-in-law made an announcement at the reception regarding the party. It wasn't an open invite but he took it. So the photographer was off the clock at the after-party eating and drinking. At the end of the party, the photographer gave me his business card and told me that by the time we came back from the honeymoon, he would have e-mailed me all of the photos. This was the other thing; the photos were supposed to be in medium format but were taken digitally.
After approximately 8 weeks, we received the proofs. We received probably around 200 proofs. I think the photographer said that he took somewhere around 500 photos the evening of the wedding. If the 200 proofs that we were sent were the best of the bunch, I'm interested in what they didn't send us! The proofs were horrible. Out of the 200 or so that were sent, there were maybe 15 that were perfect as-is. There were so many problems with the remaining photos. Some examples include:
- Pictures at my in-laws' house before the wedding ceremony as stated above - pictures with subjects in direct sunlight squinting at the camera, pictures with porch lights left on, pictures with the subject as a silhouette because of direct sunlight coming in the window from behind, improperly framed photos (photo of bride and parents with a portion of a door at the edge of the picture), extremely dark photos due to them being taken inside with bright sunlight outside, extremely light photos taken outside in direct sunlight.
- Very blury pictures from the church. Several inappropriate photos as well. There were pictures of the candles on the altar but not one of the wedding candle. There was a picture of the flowers on the altar - who cares? We later found out that he was a nature photographer. The inappropriateness of the photos being taken with a flash or at a disturbance to the ceremony. The horrible pictures in the children's crying room after the ceremony instead of on the altar. Some of these pictures were taken from the ground so that the angle looks disturbingly odd. There is one photo in particular where I am leaning into the photo and it looks like I came in at the last minute to be in the picture. I have a tendency to do that and the photographer should have seen that and picked up on it.
- The pictures at the park highlighted the "No Fishing" sign. There were some pictures not centered. There was one picture with all of the bridesmaids. The problem with the picture was that only one of the bridesmaids had her toes poking out from under her dress. All of the others had their toes covered by their dress. The photographer should have either seen this and corrected it or zoomed in so that the feet were not shown!
- Many pictures at the reception were blury as well. There was a picture of an ice sculpture which was blury, not centered, and partially cut off. Many pictures were just horribly composed (a portion of the stage at the edge of one picture, a picture of a group of people with 1/4 of it being people and 3/4 of it being ceiling, etc)
- Overall many pictures were blury, inappropriately composed, off-center, not level, or the subjects had red eye. Quite honestly, many of the pictures taken from the disposable table cameras came out far better than any proof that they showed us.
Upon discovering how aweful the proofs were, my mother-in-law starting placing phone calls to complain and get an explanation and/or partial refund. No one would take or return her phone calls. After a month or so of phone calls, she sent a certified letter expressing her dissatisfaction. No answer! I got involved and I placed a few phone calls as well with no result. We're now in November. Over the next few months, we would both place a phone call here or there as we thought about it with no response. At the same time, I was compiling a list of issues with each photo and trying to pick out the best of the worst of the photos if we had to. We would have preferred to have the money returned but knew that we might have to just deal with them and work our way through it. We tried the Better Business Bureau, several newspapers, and several tv stations. No one could get anything done (although we're not entirely sure if any of them bothered trying).
Finally I started a campaign to harass this Bob Shake where I left him a voicemail or two every day for nearly two weeks. At the same time, my mother-in-law was in touch with a newspaper reporter who was going to write an article. For whatever reason, a guy named Michael called me back and we set up an appointment to sit and review the proofs along with all of the demands that we had to make the photos reasonable. We met on September 15 to review the proofs and he told us that it would take 2-3 months but that he would shoot for 2 months. I called Michael on his cell phone on 12/5,12/13,12/22, and again on 12/29. Not a return phone call or even an acknowledgement. On 1/2/07 I decided to try Bob Shake again. I could not reach him but I did reach someone who claims to be Bob's partner by the name of Sam. Sam promised me that they would have the pictures to us in 2-3 weeks. On 1/30 (4 weeks later) I called again and he told me that he would have something to us by the end of the week (2/2). He got all defensive when I asked him if it was a real date. I explained that I had been lied to multiple times but he claimed that this would be it. Here it is 2/8 and we have nothing!
February 8
I spoke with Sam this afternoon. When he asked me how I am, I immediately started in on in with "I don't have my pictures yet" and he tells me that he's waiting on them back from the lab. I told him that he had broken three promises already (2-3 months on 9/15,2-3 weeks on 1/2, and the end of the week on 1/30). So, when I asked when I would see something, he said he's "not going to promise anything" Since he can't keep a promise, he's not going to be making one! Unbelievable. He took my number and said that he would call me back in 5 minutes. To my surprise, he called back. The story now is that he is going to do the album HIMSELF. Like this is doing us any favors? They've had everything since 9/15/06. When I spoke with him on 1/2/07, he told me that it typically takes 4-5 months. Well, in another 7 days, it will be 5 months!!!
If you have had a bad experience with Always Perfect / Lindelle Studios, I would like to hear from you. Please e-mail me at kieran - at - (ROR REDACTED E-MAIL ADDRESS FOR SECURITY PURPOSES). Stay updated by bookmarking my website:
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Kieran
Jersey City, New Jersey
U.S.A.
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