Working with Love, Leon (formerly Krauter photography) was the most stressful part of planning our…read morewedding. We were profoundly disappointed with the lack of client-care, honesty and communication throughout the entire process, even in the delivery of photos.
We hired Lauren + Casey because we liked their style, we wanted a husband/wife duo and we wanted Indy locals (we live in Los Angeles, our wedding was in my hometown of Indianapolis). We were happy to hear that Lauren, like us, felt it was important to meet in-person to talk vision + prep before the wedding. We agreed to meet in the June and July months when I was scheduled to fly home to Indianapolis. After hiring Love, Leon and putting down our 50% deposit, we felt that Lauren's interest in us and our wedding ended.
At the beginning of June, I reached out to Lauren to set + confirm our first in-person meeting. Lauren informed us that she and her husband (2nd shooter) were moving to Germany at the end of the week and she would be unable to meet until the afternoon before my wedding day. As I probed further, she admitted that Casey was no longer available to shoot the wedding and she had already hired a new 2nd shooter. When I searched for this photographer online, I came up blank. There was no Instagram, no website, no reviews and no verifiable online presence of her work. Lauren supplied us with two private links to photos, but asked me to "trust her on this one" even though she had never shot a wedding with this person.
We begged for our deposit back. Because so much had changed, we wanted to go with another photographer and part ways with no hard feelings. She refused to make an exception and informed us that she would be keeping our deposit regardless of our decision. We didn't have the budget to pay another photographer without getting that $1,650 deposit back, so we had to proceed with Lauren and try to make the best of this new situation.
Her demeanor on the day-of was good and she handled herself well with our bridesmaid photos. The only thing that struck me as odd & unprofessional was when she asked the Matron of Honor to buy her an Uber home during the reception.
After delivering the photo galleries, we noticed that a vast majority of the family and group shots were blurry. The trees behind us were focused, but all of our faces were out-of-focus. I reached out to Lauren asking for sharper versions that were suitable for printing and using in a photo book. At this point, she admitted that she had made a mistake with her camera during our group photo session and she did not have any in-focus photos of our wedding party, the bride's family, the bride + groom's family or my grandparents.
I was stunned. I reached out to some professional photographer friends to see if anyone could salvage the images. I received an overwhelming response that this was not a camera setting issue, but rather a fundamental photography-skill issue. A photographer may occasionally slip into back-focus for one or two frames out of a hundred, but anyone who bills themselves as a professional would see this mistake after a shot or two and fix it immediately on-site preventing further blurry photos.
They were all stunned to find out that she hadn't fixed it on-location, and further than she hadn't owned up to the rookie mistake upon delivery. She waited to see if we would catch it. The whole thing just doesn't sit well with me.
All this to say - Love, Leon added stress to the wedding process rather than alleviating it. Maybe it was a one-time mistake, but I wouldn't recommend taking that risk on your wedding day. If you're a bride or groom who values communication, transparency and an overall positive experience in wedding planning, I would urge you to explore other photographers in Indy.
**NOTE: As a courtesy, I let Lauren know in advance that we would be sharing our honest experience on this platform. In response, she offered + provided a 50% refund for the $3,600 contract and apologized as she understands that nothing can replace the fact that these images were not captured. She will "use this as an opportunity to learn and grow."**