DAVID WALTERS PHOTOGRAPHY

"Bad" does not begin to describe my impression of our experience with David Walters/Avalon Studios. David took our wedding pictures this past May, and I cannot imagine a less professional, more upsetting experience, or worse pictures period. 

Specifically:

1.) David's wife told my mother-in-law on our wedding day that he is actually blind, which we had never been told. The fact that he has vision problems seemed apparent after we saw the pictures.

2.) David made us pay the total amount upfront, before he would let us see any of the pictures he had taken.

3.) The pictures are not just awful, in my opinion, they're also nonsensical and sad.  A few examples: many of the pictures before the wedding are incredibly dark; there are some where people are cut in half while there are yards of empty space on the other side of the picture; there are several pictures with people's heads cut off; the cake cutting pictures barely include any view of the cake (so it's just me holding a knife); and almost all of the pictures are crooked. More pictures than not seem to show people frowning, looking away, or checking their phone.  Please note: David was contracted to stay until the end of the wedding, but he only has about 500 pictures to show for 6 hours total, and many of them show people frowning or checking their cell phones.

4.) What isn't in the pictures is more troubling than what is.  There are no pictures of the church decorated inside, the wedding procession, the drive-off, the special touches (i.e. my brooch, my great-grandmother's necklace), or of the back deck at the reception (where most of the guests were).  There are almost none of the ceremony generally, the wedding party, or the guests (the church was full, yet he managed to largely exclude guests from the pictures).

5.) I called David after we saw the pictures and expressed that we were unhappy.  I asked if there were any options in terms of photoshopping or retouching the pictures.  He did not return my call.  I called him several more times and then emailed him several times, but still no answer.  Finally, when I threatened legal action, he sent a short email telling me I would get nothing from him. 

6.) Beyond the large payment we made to David, he now says that he expects us to pay for each picture individually (which was not in the contract or made clear when we hired him).  I'm not talking about paying for prints here--he wants us to pay for each digital file individually, just to have rights to our own pictures. So unless we pay him even more money, we won't have any pictures of our wedding at all.

7.) Several guests reported that David was drinking during the reception, and there are no pictures from the end of the reception even though he said he would stay until the end.

I generally try to avoid leaving bad reviews, but I cannot imagine a less professional or more heartbreaking experience.