This is a review for our experience with hiring Life Gallery Studio for our wedding which took…read moreplace on May 31st, 2013. We chose Life Gallery based on their excellent reviews on weddings specialist sites such as Wedding Wire, which we have since learned are policed by the vendors themselves, so only extremely positive reviews are posted and the negative reviews are "disputed" which means they are suspended from the site, often indefinitely.
We had a nice initial consolation with the owner Scott, who emphasized their speciality in taking candid shots during weddings, which was something we were really interested in. They offer nice albums and a decent range of packages ranging from 4 hours on up. "Seems reasonable," we said. Contract signed.
Day of the wedding, our photographer, Ronda, showed up on time. She was a bit idiosyncratic and rough around the edges, but we figured, "hey, she's an artist, let her do her thing."
It was extremely hot that day and she marched us around the vineyard where our wedding took place, often shouting at us, "Don't move! I'll tell you when to move!" when she found the lighting to be favorable.
She struggled mightily to remember my wife's name throughout the ceremony despite repeated reminders. Seemed like a fairly basic ask for such an important day, but we were more concerned about the photographic results.
At the reception, Ronda seemed bored and listless. We added a few hours to her workload at $150/hour, included dinner and let her know to feel free to help herself to a drink. Which she did. She then seemed to forget she was working and spent the back end of the reception, mostly seated and not taking photos. Guests asked her, "Ronda, why aren't you taking photos?"
"It would be awkward while you're eating," she said in reply.
Um, maybe awkward for Ronda, but the guests would have welcomed it...that's. why. we. hired. a. photographer. Life Gallery knew beforehand that the entire reception was a dinner and that was the task, so Ronda should not have been disappointed by the lack of a Bollywood style reception with tigers jumping through rings of fire. They never voiced any concerns before the event took place.
"Let's see what photos she got," I said, "before we complain, maybe we'll be surprised."
Well, the results were less than spectacular. The role of photos ranged from a few very nice shots, to many mediocre, and even more amateurish. Each table had flowers on it, which she captured wonderfully, but often at the expense of our guests' faces. Another highlight includes the back of the groom's head as he hugs his father, whose face is obscured by the back of the groom's head. That's the type of "candids" she got.
We expressed our disappointment to Scott afterwards, who made no attempt at apologies or even understanding, and didn't even acknowledge the root of our dissatisfaction. "Most people only care about 20 shots to make an album," he said. Somehow we feel shortchanged by that after paying over a grand.
It's entirely possible our experience was an outlier. As Scott said, they are very well reviewed online. Perhaps, that's because they spend so much time disputing any less than stellar ones on review sites.
Here's hoping my review survives on Yelp, so other couples might be spared a less than positive experience on their wedding day, and cloudy, obscured, memories afterwards, marked by frustration. Luckily, we have the photos our friends and relatives took, which on the whole, represent a superior collection of work than what we got from Life Gallery Studio.
Send me a message for samples of their work.
