Choose your Wedding Photographer Wisely

Six months before our Beach Wedding in June of 2002, we compiled a list of Wedding Photographers in New York City and interviewed four of the most promising photographers in the bunch, looking at their preliminary online samples and price ranges. During each interview, we looked at their hard-copy sample portfolios, asked many questions about photographic style, how they plan their scheduling for family shots and the things that were important to us, compared pricing and techniques, and finally chose our Photographer, primarily basing our decision on her sweet demeanor. Though she was only in her mid-twenties, we found Leah Flanagin to be charming, friendly and personable and she seemed to know her business. Also, her journalistic style, as shown in her samples, matched our vision of how we wanted to remember our once-in-a-lifetime wonderful Beach Wedding. She used all the right terminology and sweetly convinced us that she would do a fabulous job. She was hired! We paid half of the fee at the contract signing and the balance on the morning of our wedding.

When the Wedding day arrived, she showed up on time, seemed to be everywhere at once and was extremely unobtrusive. We felt very fortunate to have found such a terrific photographer and were comfortable in the knowledge that when we returned from our honeymoon in Bermuda, we would have proofs ready for picking the shots we wanted for our albums. We met with her for an exhausting four hours, going over hundreds of proofs and chose the photos we preferred. We made arrangements to meet in two weeks to receive our wedding albums, one for my husband and me and two for our parents. After our meeting, I felt a little disappointed with what we had seen, there were blurry shots, some quite out of focus, odd angles and only one picture of our lovely seashell wedding cake. I thought I was just very tired, so I asked my husband what he thought of the proofs. Though he had a similar reaction, we decided that the shots we viewed were really just proofs and that the final products would be beautifully developed and just like the photos in the sample albums we had initially seen. We couldn't wait to pick up our wedding albums!

We never saw or heard from her again.

So upset we could scream, we began a journey beginning with a simple Google search that brought us to the following poem and ending over 2 years later, at least for us, with a refund mandated by the New York State Attorney General: http://www.netspace.org/~kenneroo/main/potree/flanagin.html. We met a group of truly wonderful and committed folks in the same predicament and together we fought for our memories.

Read the links and news articles to get the full flavor or our plight and please PLEASE ask for references in your search for a Wedding Photographer. Don't let your big day be tainted by anything but love and laughter!

Go to http://sheashells.com to view a variety of unique, custom-designed Beach Wedding Decor!