3/20/19 UPDATED REVIEW for 11/18/18 Wedding at Mercury Hall in Austin, TX: James was over 1.5 hours late to our event (missing all of our first look photos at the Van Zandt) and showed up seeming to be under the influence of drugs/alcohol. He was ultimately asked to leave after our wedding ceremony, because he was such a mess and his "assistant" was no help either. To this day, James has not provided an executed contract after multiple requests for one. Probably because he does not want to be held accountable. We should have seen James' lack of communication as a red flag, and honestly regret moving forward with him as our photographer. James has an endless amount of excuses for every single one of his mess ups when working with him. James can try to give excuses and claim he was not stumbling around during our wedding ceremony, but unfortunately we have 94 wedding guests as firsthand witnesses to his sloppy unprofessionalism. During our wedding ceremony, James was stumbling around and tripping over bushes. Not because there were uneven stones, but because he was trampling around in the landscaping. It was even distracting for me, the bride. James could not walk without stumbling, so during our ring exchange he planted himself crisscross applesauce in the middle of the aisle with his elbows on his knees in an attempt to stabilize himself. After my groom and I shared our kiss, we began to turn to walk down the aisle and there's James still planted in the aisle. We had to awkwardly stand there smiling waiting for him to register what was going on and get off the ground. He then proceeded to hobble along in front of us with his back to us (not taking any photos) as we exited down the aisle. We tried to give him the benefit of the doubt to shoot our ceremony even after he was arguing with us 10min before our ceremony was to begin, because he wanted us to push back our wedding ceremony 30min so he could try to capture sunset photos on an overcast day at dusk. My eldest brother had to ask James to step out of our suite because James had me in tears minutes before I was supposed to walk down the aisle. James was asked to leave our wedding because it was upsetting for us just to be around him/interact with him. He could barely carry a conversation. The reason there was one wedding guest with a DSLR taking photos during our ceremony is because I had to call one of my best friends to ask her to bring her camera to the ceremony when James informed us 30min before he was supposed to arrive that he would be would be an hour and a half late. I was in full hair and make-up in tears, because I was having to worry about whether or not our wedding photographer was going to show up. The 194 photos James finally sent us aren't like the photos in his portfolio. His photos were unedited, burst shots, out of focus. Incredibly sloppy work that he took over two weeks to give to us. We were able to salvage a total of FIVE photos. James missed the entire procession. James may have had some good moments as a photographer, but our unfortunate experience is also what he is capable of. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT take the risk in hiring him. James was not harassed or accused of anything other than being unprofessional, dishonest, and a complete disappointment. Note his Yelp review from Marty S. on 9/6/18 where he did a NO CALL NO SHOW to a wedding. I've contacted that bride and she confirmed James was fired from Bellagala after not showing to her wedding. read more

DO NOT HIRE. Beware of this scammer. He has devised a smart way of extracting money by harassment. His method is - Step 1 - Be extremely professional till you lock the contract and pay the deposit. Step 2 - Go missing and communicate once in 2 weeks, and respond so less that you lose faith in him even showing up for your wedding. He keeps just enough communication to prove that he is doing his part of the deal in case of a lawsuit. Step 3 - Make stories that are obnoxious about why he did not respond. Used a story about how he had to fly to Florida and lost his phone in a family fight with his mom( fraud alert- has used the same story with other people whom I connected with when I dug further) Step 4 - You reach a point where you want to have someone who's responsive like EVERY other vendor you'll work with for your wedding planning, and you tell james to break the contract and return the deposit. Step 5 - You have a contract that says that once you lock it and cancel, you don't get the deposit back, but then who will risk the biggest day of their lives at the mercy of someone who is harassing them for extraction. So James will now reply saying please let me work for you and I'm now back in town etc, basically everything that will not help you take him to court. Smart guy. DO NOT BE FOOLED. read more

If you are looking for a 5-Star Professional Photographer, I highly recommend you give a call to James. James was our photographer for our client appreciation dinner party at the SFO Airport Marriott. Our clients were older adults (age 55 and up). I asked James to take holiday photos of each guest and then work his magic as our event photographer throughout the night. Jame's shot list included clients, candid photos, high impact dancers during performance, and many group photos that our CEO & each table greatly enjoyed. James was very approachable and gave great directions when each client went to take their holiday photos. Most importantly, James was very flexible and proactive in capturing the evening' moment as I was running around. Throughout the entire event, James was very communicative - always replying to my emails - and offered his tips/advice in setting up our photo area. On the day of the event, he knew the event schedule and when/where he needed to be to capture the moments. Lastly, James was on time, professional, easy to work with, and extremely flexible. Our photos were edited and uploaded onto Google Drive & given a thumb drive. THANK YOU JAMES! We look forward to working with you for our future projects. read more

No call, no show at our wedding. Very disappointing and unprofessional. Still have not been able to communicate even a week later. Would not recommend. read more

James was amazing! I found him through Groupon, but didn't ultimately use Groupon to book him. He'd already moved to IL, and even though I live in SF, they came all the way back to shoot our wedding! I've worked as a stage manager for years, and was treating our wedding as a big show. When I'm hiring people for theater, I'm looking for reliable, focused, knowledgeable and calm. James was all these things. He and his wife showed up with their equipment on time, rolled with the punches of my crazy family, and never once got frustrated even though things were changing a ton. They also weren't carrying around a whole bunch of extra equipment. They had what they needed to make amazing photos and clearly knew what they were doing. We just got the files to choose which ones to retouch and I have to admit, there's not much needed. The photos are beautiful, and working with him was great. I'm so glad we hired him for our wedding. read more

My husband and I chose James Waynauskas as we were drawn to many of the pictures in his gallery. We liked his style of photography as he had some very unique photos that actually made us connect with his work on an emotional level. After talking with him and sharing the vision for our wedding, I knew we had found our photographer. He listened and truly demonstrated an understanding for what we wanted. Moreover, he suggested ideas, locations & shots that took our vision up to the next level. We were married in August 2017 and received access to our photos approximately one month later just as he had promised. James did not disappoint! He captured all of our special moments with shots that are elegant, creative and simply stunning. We could not have asked for more! He is beyond talented, knowledgeable, attentive and extremely easy to work with. If you are looking for a highly skilled photographer to capture a special moment in your life, I assure you James Waynauskas can make it happen! read more

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Hands down some of the best photography service I have received. The level of professionalism as well as ability to make my vision a reality is fantastic. The first time I worked JWP was for my sisters quincenaria and the pictures came out great. Another occasion was a live performance with my band when we were performing in Chicago. He was able to capture the moments that made us relive the performance all over again. I look forward to working with JWP more in the very near future! read more

I can not express how disappointed I am at the quality of photos that were taken at our wedding. We had almost no usable photographs of our entire wedding ceremony, as the majority of photos he took were out of focus. He also did not position people or have any creative ideas or suggestions for photographs. I have been a part of numerous weddings and every photographer I have ever encountered actively positions people and sets up the photographs in order to take the best photographs possible. James on the other hand merely told us to stand however we wanted, and then snapped photos of us without any direction of any kind. Anyone with a camera could have done this, and to top it off, he did a very poor job of even that simple task, failing to center people in photos or take them in focus. We had also asked him to duplicate a photo that was on his website and after probably 30 or more tries he failed to duplicate a photo that is on his own website. I find this extremely difficult to understand that. Unfortunately, our problems with James did not end there. After expressing to James our displeasure with the photographs, he refused to meet with us to discuss any kind of refund. read more

James was really responsive and took great candids for my graduation party. Some pictures were overexposed and some more thought in composition could have been put into the photos. However, overall, on the whole James was great to work with and we came out with lovely shots that we are happy to have! read more