ALL THAT'S VIDEO & PHOTOGRAPHY

Looking back, I find it quite telling that the owner, Peter Day, had no video footage on his website at the time we hired him. He did show up on time to the church, but I think that that is one of the few positive comments I can make about him. Overall, I found his customer service skills quite lacking and his behavior highly unprofessional. He stood right in front of my photographer during some of the more important shots at the ceremony (me walking down the aisle, first dance). To me, that shows professional disrespect and is completely uncalled for. After the wedding, my mom told me that he had nudged her out of the way, too, when I was walking down the aisle; she was standing half in the pew and half in the aisle to get a picture of my father and me. Also, I told and emailed him regarding the restrictions of the church; the major restriction my priest emphasized is that no lay-people are allowed on the main alter, but that there was a secondary altar that the vendors could use freely. Throughout the entire ceremony, Peter set up his tripod on the top step leading up to the main altar and lay down on the steps; this behavior was not only highly disrespectful but also greatly limited the shots that my photographer was able to take. Luckily, she was able to get some great shots from different angles. What upsets me most is that none of the video he shot from his sprawled out position were even in the rough cut! Anyway, in terms of customer service, he had emailed me that he would get the rough cut of the video to me within 4 weeks of the wedding. We did not get the rough cut until about 6 weeks after. Upon viewing the rough cut, I was highly disappointed with the quality of the entire video. Most of the video is shaky and grainy. Quite frankly, I feel like I was ripped off because we paid $1,000 for a professional videographer and what we have so far is a sub-par, mediocre-at-best video. The quality of it was very similar to my Dad's handheld video camera. And to top it all off, his letter with the rough cut video states that we have only 2 weeks to write out any changes or edits we want and get them to him, otherwise he'll charge us extra to edit the video! We decided not to let him do a final cut of the video. Short of re-staging the entire wedding, there would be no way he could even come out with a decent final cut based on the rough footage. The equipment he used, which he claims is state-of-the-art is decades old. Basically, he's doing this to earn extra money in his retirement and has no professional experience.