(Review 1/2)
I rarely write reviews, but after months of…read moreattempting to resolve this privately and giving every opportunity to make things right, I feel it is important to share our experience so other couples can make an informed decision.
We booked Talia after extensive research and a genuinely wonderful initial consultation. From that very first call, she was warm, professional, and deeply aligned with our vision. Booking a destination wedding photographer sight unseen is a leap of faith, and our engagement session completely validated that decision -- the direction, the attentiveness, and the final images all exceeded our expectations and gave us full confidence heading into our wedding day. Unfortunately, that trust was not honored when it mattered most.
Weeks before our wedding, we learned Talia would not be photographing it at all. Rather than hearing this directly from her -- the person we had built a relationship with, paid, and trusted -- we were informed by a team member and introduced to a photographer, Perry, we had never met. We later learned Talia had a family emergency, which we fully sympathize with. But a personal call or email from her directly would have gone a long way. We deserved that given the relationship we had built.
Despite buffer time built into the timeline, coverage felt rushed and meaningful moments went uncaptured -- cocktail hour, dancing, candid moments, and family portraits were missing or severely lacking. The second shooter added very little value. We found ourselves calling out our own poses on our wedding day, something no bride should have to do.
We knew posing and direction were part of Talia's approach because she delivered it beautifully during our engagement session. The issue was that Perry could not deliver at that level -- and what made this even more frustrating was that we had shared detailed expectations, specific poses, and multiple Pinterest boards with him well in advance, which he explicitly confirmed he was aligned with. That alignment never materialized on the day, and we were never warned in advance so we could have prepared differently.
When the gallery arrived, the editing was entirely inconsistent with the style that led us to book Talia -- many images appeared washed out, overly bright, or grainy, lacking the variety, vision, and storytelling we had been promised. It did not reflect the experience of our wedding day or the visual language we had aligned on throughout our planning.
This was only the beginning. Please see our second review for a full account of what followed.