Melissa's pictures are beautiful. I have been a repeat customer of hers since 2013 and treasure the beautiful imagery she has provided me over the years. She has even entered some portraits of my kids in competitions. This year however, I have changed my outlook on Melissa. As a repeat customer, I prepaid for a session and all the digitals upfront. There was no written agreement. I have dealt with Melissa for years and thought I could trust her. She took our portraits in 11/2015 and it is now 6/30/2016. I was provided with a partial delivery at the beginning of May which consisted of 4 pictures - 3 of my kids walking away from the camera and one nice family portrait. At this time her response was that she would upload the rest in a few days. This never happened and she has not responded to me since. At this point, I consider that my money was basically stolen because I paid upfront and did not receive what I paid for. 8 months and no delivery of my mini-session. A repeat and up until now, happy customer, paid in full, was patient and went months in between inquiries as to the status of my session and in the end, got screwed by Melissa Avey Photography. I will definitely be very careful with contracts and payment of photographers in the future. This whole transaction is very saddening to me. read more

In short: As our photographer Melissa was responsible for capturing the moments of our special day, big and small, but she showed up over an hour late with no explanation or apology and even ended up sneaking off early so there are many moments that we will never have photos to look back on. She ignored many of our follow up calls and emails and when she did respond she was extremely rude and denied any accountability and tried to make us sign a new contract AFTER the wedding had already happened. When following up with our USB file that was to be sent she kept blowing us off with "Sorry, sending it tomorrow." Instead of the 6 weeks as stated in our contract we received our USB of photos 6 months and a week after our wedding. Such a disappointing experience! More detailed review: Please learn from my hard-learned lesson! DO NOT CUT COSTS WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR WEDDING! Pay for someone who knows what they are doing and will take their job and your wedding seriously! We were delighted to save some money and thought we were giving a newbie a chance at more experience but it ended up costing us more in ways we can never put a price on. We hired Melissa and were so excited because her photos looked amazing on her website! I was a little hesitant because she clearly had more experience with maternity and baby photoshoots but we decided to give her a shot and help her expand her business. Everyone has to start somewhere right? I deeply regret that decision. We should have spent the extra money and hired someone more professional who has respect for other people and their own profession. We were even more concerned when she cancelled our consult last minute and then our engagement session TWICE! That was a huge red flag but we felt locked in because we had paid our deposit already and the wedding was now only a couple months away. Our intuition proved right and Melissa flaked on our big day too. She showed up over an hour late with no apology or explanation. Because of this we weren't able to get the "pre" photos we had wanted. I also had to delay putting on my dress for over an hour until she arrived so that she could get a few photos of my matron of honour and mom helping me put my dress on. I felt so frazzled and rushed and felt horrible that our guests were kept waiting so long at the church! We had agreed that if we ended up needing more time with her she was available to stay longer at an agreed upon rate. She approached me just before my parents were about to give their speech, said that she had stayed longer to make up some time and asked if they were "good to go". I said no, I'd really like you to stay to take photos of my parent's speech. She rolled her eyes, sighed and said ok. A guest started talking to me so I turned away from Melissa for a moment and when I turned back around she was gone. I searched the entire venue with another guest but she had vanished. It turns out that that was 15 minutes before our tentative end time which means that not only did she arrive over an hour later than the agreed upon time, she also left 15 minutes earlier than our contract had stated. After the wedding she sent us a bill for the full outstanding amount, I had that money ready the day of the wedding but as she showed up an hour late I didn't have time to sort that out with her and I assumed that our payment was going to be renegotiated due to her tardiness and early departure. When I raised my concerns with her about her tardiness she was incredibly rude in response and lied and denied any accountability. She tried changing our contract with new terms and demanded more money from us. She eventually agreed to waive the last payment and just give us our photos and had said on numerous occasions that she was mailing the package "tomorrow". Every time I followed up she would blow me off with a "Sorry, will mail tomorrow." It was the same response for weeks and months. She shared a Dropbox folder with previews of our photos but I was not able to access them as they all had to be individually downloaded or saved as a screenshot to extract them from the Dropbox file. Our contract stated that we would have our USB package 6 weeks after the wedding but it was a grueling 6 months and a week after our wedding until we finally had our photos in hand. This has been an absolute nightmare and something no one should have to deal with during such a joyful life event. I have never witnessed such a lack of respect for other people. Melissa was horribly unprofessional and very rude to deal with. I would strongly advise to hire a different photographer or if you have already booked this photographer make sure you have everything in writing and tell her to arrive an hour earlier than when you actually need her. read more

Melissa Avey Photography - Melissa was to arrive just before 12pm to get photos of myself and the bridesmaids getting ready. She showed up at the same time as our limo - Photographers Near Me

Buyer Beware!!! If you work with Melissa, have a clear contract with deadlines and penalties for late service in it. Over a year after our wedding, we were still waiting to receive all of our photos. It was 10 months before our wedding photos were uploaded to her private website. Along the way, the communication has been terrible. Long waits to get an email response or text response. False promises that were not followed through on. Overall a very disappointing and frustrating experience for us. We do not wish this on anyone and can see that while most have a good experience with Melissa, there are some that have horrible experiences. Melissa has great photography skills and a genuine friendliness, however as a business owner, integrity of word and delivery of service is missing. read more

I was part of the bridal party for my best friend's wedding. My friend hired Melissa because she saw good reviews from various websites. However the entire process has been a nightmare. Although the pictures turned out okay, the communication was horrible. It has been 9 months and she still hasn't received all her wedding photos. Melissa never returns any calls or emails and my friend has been so upset that she can't get the photos to show her friends and family. She is very unprofessional with her communication and I would recommend you find someone else. read more

DO NOT HIRE. Deserves a negative rating. It has been nearly a year and a half since our wedding and we do not have any actual pictures of my husband and I together, just random shots of the room and a few of the ceremony that she only just posted within the last month. She is incredibly unprofessional with communication and all aspects of her business. I am hoping that anyone who has her booked for a 2018 wedding looks at her reviews again because they are full of stories just like mine. There are so many fabulous, professional photographers to choose from, Melissa just isn't one of them. read more

DO NOT HIRE! Married Oct. 2016 and did not receive wedding photos till Oct. 2017. Terrible photo quality, service and completely unprofessional. She ignored my messages for weeks at a time, empty promises and eventually sent photos that someone with any smart phone could have taken. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND MELISSA! Completely ruined our post wedding experience and added unneeded stress to our lives. 2.5 years later and still waiting for a USB that will never come...Disgusting. read more

My husband and I hired Melissa Avey as our wedding photographer in July 1st, 2017. Due to the reasonably priced service and her well advertised photos on her website. She is the most unreliable, untrustworthy, unprofessional business owner. We have paid in full amount and given her more than enough time to respond and deliver our photos. Melissa would not respond to any of our messages, via email, IG, DM's, txt's and she would change her business phone number without notifying us. After many weeks turned into months of waiting; she would reply vaguely; "by end of week" or "as soon as possible". Now, almost 7months past our wedding, there is no "beautifully finished gallery, a keepsake box, or a USB drive" -(Advertised on her website) Now, what is left is a broken contract, and promises. We will take legal actions towards her. read more

I hired Melissa Avey to do my wedding photography in 2016 because she was sweet and her photos on social media were beautiful. Fast forward to over a year later and I still hadn't received my photos. Melissa was very unresponsive. When I finally got my files (the majority unedited), many were unusable. It was like she didn't care. Absolutely horrible service, and though I had hoped she would make changes, it's now 2018 and brides are still speaking out, and it's the same story, the same experience. Very sad. read more

Be sure to check out various sites for reviews online of this photographer. She appears to be a scam artist and the majority of us clients are left without agreed upon refunds, waiting over a year for wedding photos, have her be a no show to engagement shoots and meetings, dropping off the face of the earth after she has your money: not answering her phone, emails, social media platforms. My spouse and I are thankfully just trying to get our agreed upon (signed and dated contract) refund back. However I have reached out to many who she was the wedding photographer for and her business appears to be a total scam and disaster. Unethical and unprofessional. Weddings are a big deal and a big day so you are warned not to trust placing your precious memories into her crooked hands. Certainly not worth the stress and anguish. Just reach out and you too will hear all the same negative stories from many and she should be ashamed of herself. People who appear to act like sociopaths don't make for good wedding photographers it seems. read more

Absolutely AWFUL experience that we ended up cancelling our contract with Melissa. I would not recommend Melissa Avey Photography to ANY bride, which is very unfortunate as I am at the age where all of our friends are getting married and asking for recommendations. My fiancé and I met with Melissa back in September 2015 after loving her photography style, and the price seemed right. Although we were not getting married until April 2017 we knew booking photographers happened fast and we thought a fall engagement shoot would be a great contrast to our spring wedding. We also figured we would want the photos for our save the dates- which is why we wanted them so far in advance. Melissa and I had set the engagement shoot date and time and ended our conversation with me asking if she had any ideas of where to go- we were open to ideas. No response. I waited a few days and provided some ideas and asked if she had any suggestions. No response. We were meeting on a Sunday morning at 8am and it was not until 6pm the night before that Melissa threw out a location. At that point I just said yes since it was so last minute and she said she was busy at a wedding. There was never any conversation about if my fiancé and I had any ideas or looks we were going for- or even what to expect that day. After the shoot Melissa said it would be around 2 months for photos- totally fine for us. We took our engagement photos on October 25, 2015. December 7, 2015 I asked Melissa if any of the photos would be done before Christmas so we could use the photos as gifts for parents and grandparents. I told her if not to let me know and I would find alternative gift ideas- not a big deal. Melissa said she would have the link up "ASAP" and put the ones that were edited in so I had some to choose from and the rest of the photos would follow. The link was finally sent to us on December 19th empty. It took calling, emailing, and Facebook messaging before we got 5 photos in the link on December 23, 2016. Tuesday April 19, 2016 we made an appointment with our venue to walk the grounds and get an idea of where we could take photos the following year for our wedding. I had messaged Melissa inviting her seeing as she is the photographer and would maybe give her some ideas. She did not respond to my messages so I had no idea if she was going to come or not and just assumed she wasn't. It would be an understatement to say I was surprised when Melissa walked up. Later on I found out my fiancé had sent her a reminder email that day- makes me wonder if she would have shown up without him brining it up again. While we were there we asked Melissa when we could expect the rest of our engagement photos. At that point we still only had 5 photos in 6 months. Melissa said she could either put the ones that were done in our Dropbox and finish later on or edit them all and put them in at once. She assured us there were WAY more than 5 edited. We asked her to put the ones that were done in the Dropbox and we could wait for the rest. After that meeting we received 2 more photos. By this time the extreme lack of communication and failure to follow through with her work had me VERY worried as a bride. I felt no confidence in Melissa that she would even communicate with us before our wedding day or that we would ever even get our wedding photos. Melissa has posted on her Facebook that she was not going to book any more couples and focus on the clients she had but never followed through with our engagement photos or even reaching out to us to let us know where she was. We feel like we have been completely shoved to the side as a client. I understand there are other weddings and engagement shoots before ours but we came to a point where we felt like we were begging for something that was never going to happen. We ended up emailing Melissa that we were cancelling- seeing as she would not respond to any of your emails, voicemails or Facebook messages. It took her weeks before she responded- and only after my fiancé had to comment on one of her photos she posted on Facebook before we actually got a response. It has now been just short of a year and all we got out of this whole experience with Melissa was 5 photos and a lost portion of our deposit. We are SO disappointment/frustrated/angry with this whole experience from start to finish. To me photos are THE most important part of a wedding (aside from the marriage itself). At the end of the day the photos are all that you have left. I would NEVER want another couple to go through the experience we had to go through. It still baffles me that she has so many good reviews. I don't understand why we just got completely disregarded and ignored. I am just happy I never have to deal with Melissa again and that our new photographer has shown us a COMPLETE 180 experience. read more

Do not choose this Photographer. My husband and I chose Melissa as her quality of photos were great and pricing was reasonable. Little did we know that the experience moving forward would have been a nightmare. We got married May 20 2017 and we still do not have our final product; when we do get any photos it is just a handful once a week. Melissa's lack of professionalism, lack of communication, lack of value for her clients and overall integrity of her business is in question. We are so disapoointed as we have tried several times to communicate with her and she chooses to not reply. When she does reply, it is when she feels like it and creates a "plan" which never happens. I had a Medical Emergency earlier this year, I lost my vision- completely! Melissa was well aware of this matter and should know that as a bride, having her capture our Wedding Day would mean that much more to me! At this time Melissa cannot be trusted and we are so upset with how she has handled our business/money with us, Moving foward we are pursuing Legal Action and reporting Melissa to the PWPC. My hope is that no other person, couple or family will have to experience this horrible service the way we have. Please read all reviews, not just the positive ones on Social Media. read more