So instead of accepting some semblance of fault and apologizing for missing the mark, you have chosen to give me a pile of excuses for the work rendered. Most if not all of my ceremony photos were overexposed from what I received on the discs after submitting for my album. I told Amy at our original meeting that I had all the needed editing software but I never expected I would have to do the actual work for my photos myself. I had to spend hours using lightroom and photoshop to even attempt to fix a handful of all of the overexposed pictures. Also, seriously shocked I even have to go here, when your bride and groom are begging to stop or take a break to get some water on a hot summer day in formal wear because they are close to passing out you don't try to justify "missing out on beach photos" as an excuse. This should be a huge concern for your business liability wise and honestly is pretty abhorrent as a person. I have attached photos that I received, these are only a small portion of what I was given. I already had to wait 3 months for the discs of images to be delivered, the last thing I wanted was to potentially have my photos held even longer or entirely by making remarks that I wasn't happy with all of them. After discussing the experience with my husband and contemplating writing a review, I decided to go ahead with it. And I'm glad I did now, because people should see all facets of a company they are potentially going to spend thousands of dollars on. read more

The Wedding Studio - Overexposed photos I received, almost all of my ceremony photos were overexposed and unusable. - Videographers Near Me

We met with the Wedding Studio of Schaumburg earlier this year after meeting them at a Bridal Expo the previous autumn. They were the only photographers to have autumn photos out for display. Believe me! I asked everyone where their autumn photos were and they told me that they didn't have any! Why would you go to a Bridal Expo in autumn with no photos to fit the season?! Anywho... When we met with TWS we looked at a bunch more photos from their photographers and interviewed with the owner. She paired us with Jerri who was the one who took all the autumn photos that we loved originally! When we met Jerri we thought we were sitting with a friend of ours! She was as crazy as us if not more! Our personalities match perfectly. She was excited to be photographing a wedding like ours! Not only was it to be the first weekend of October, but it was also a Renaissance Faire themed wedding! We reviewed all the fun photos we would with the weapons people would have strapped on them and the fun outfits being worn! The day of she showed up to the hotel with bells on! We were already crazy excited with hair and makeup being done, so she just started snapping. Luckily, when I had no idea what to do she was great about directing us. We were a bunch of tomboys playing dress up, so we were happy to have someone to assist in giving us direction! Once in a while I did find things I wanted to ensure that she got that Kodak moment of and I simply said, "Hey Jerri, wanna see something cool?!" She always responded positively and full of glee! She had just as much fun as the rest of us did and boy did we make sure of it! ;) read more

I would like to give a negative rating. The Wedding Studio provided DJ and Photography Services for our wedding. We had problems with both. The Wedding Studio took the position of either blaming the sub - contractors or blaming us. DJ - The DJ was incommunicado for a period of 4 days the week of our wedding. Ultimately he apologized and explained that he lost his cell phone and was out of town. He got a friend to show up at our wedding. The friend did a pretty good job, but did not have the list of songs and artists that we requested. He also did not have a portable microphone that we requested. My poor wife was in tears 2 days before our wedding not knowing whether we were going to have a DJ. Photographer - negative 3 stars!!! The best thing that I can say about the photographer is he did have some good equipment. My recommendation is either pay a bit more for a real professional or get a friend to take pictures for free. I am a hobbyist photographer and have shot a few weddings myself. I can tell you that there appears to be a purposefull reason that all of the pictures were off center or needed other post processing... they want to make EXTRA $$$ to do this. It should be included in the base price. Our photographer was very lazy and just wanted extra money. He was supposed to set up a screen and take portraits but did not. AVOID!! read more

I was married this past July, and we hired the Wedding Studio for both our photography and our DJ services. Amy was our contact, and she was truly lovely to work with. She was prompt, clear, professional, friendly, and did her utmost to help us pick exactly what we wanted and to provide us with quality. We selected Hillary as our photographer. I believe Amy described her as leaning more towards photo-journalistic. I wanted fairly natural and candid photos, nothing cheesy, with lots of groupings and specific family shots. The loss of two stars on my review is due to my experience working with Hillary. Far below my expectations. In the future, if I ever work with a photographer again, I will aim to be highly explicit regarding what shots I want, etc. Hillary called me initially only 1 week before the wedding, though I had been reaching out to her at least a week before then. She didn't want to talk a lot of details, she didn't follow up as she said she would. On the day of the wedding, she did arrive early, though for me I was unhappy with that as we were paying her for period of time that began to count down from when she arrived, and I wanted her at the wedding later. She spent her first 30 minutes talking with people in my dressing room, mainly focused on telling us about her own engagement the day before. Very exciting, very distracting, no pictures were taken. She took TWO pictures of me by myself, none of which were full length much less in my dress. She did nothing to make sure the content in the frames were pleasing--I have a pic of all the bridesmaids watching me get zipped into my dress, and there are purses in focus in the foreground. Picture ruined. She had no eye for detail, kept starting personal conversations with me and others, and missed key groupings (me and my grandparents, my husband and his parents individually, etc) of which I had no brainspace to keep a checklist and missed myself. I don't remember seeing her more than twice at my reception, and on more than one occasion was actively looking for her. The one good thing I want to say for Hillary is that she insisted we do another small shoot after the ceremony though I was hesitant to force my party to line up again, because the lighting was perfect. She was right, those pictures are beautiful and I'm glad I have them. The quality of the pictures that I have are fine, and we did get copyright to the entire set, which is incredible. The DJ, Gene Neri was FABULOUS and we loved working with him up to and during the wedding. He clarified everything, double checked right before the reception, played everything on point, utilizes great technology, was fun and friendly, did nothing weird, overall totally awesome. ADDITIONALLY, he saved my ceremony and fixed our ceremony music when it wouldn't play. Really glad that The Wedding Studio partners with him. So, the good: Amy, the cost, copy right, the DJ. Cons: the photographer. read more

The Wedding studio was horrible, I would not recommend them to anyone. The photographer was horrible. She refused to follow the itinerary she had already agreed to and refused to do destination shots even though our package included unlimited destinations. She didn't take alot of the shots we asked for and was too bossy. The proofbook sucks, it is like 12 1" pictures to a page, so get out your magnifying glass. They also moved their office over an hour away during the whole process and never warned us about it until after they have moved. DO NOT USE THEM!!! read more

We had the most terrible experience with both the photographer and the owner of this company. Completely unprofessional. The photographer was late to the church, so we were not able to get outside photos before the ceremony and then late to the first stop, so we had to miss completely one of of planned stops. And then during the ceremony the photopgrapher was too busy smoking ad mingling, to the point that there are no shots of guests, decorations or overall reception. It was so disappointing. The owner then was completely unapologetic to this and even said I was the problem, that Jerry, the photographer thought "there was no pleasing me". I swear Amy, the owner, was two seconds away from calling me names on the phone when I called to complain. Completely unprofessional. If the photos themselves were ok, that I guess would have made up for it, but not only was the whole experience the day of the wedding horrible, but the proofs were tiny and very hard to discern if the photos were in focus or any good, in order to select them for the album. The final album has a photo in which the groom has his eyes closed, and that was one of the photos they recommended to use (!!!) They were quick to charge for every little thing though, and kept pushing extras to make us spend more. It as a disaster. If there were anything I could do over from our wedding, hiring a different photographer would definitely be it. Be warned. Do yourself a favor and avoid them, these people are horrible! read more

My husband and I had a wonderful experience with The Wedding Studio. The price was within our budget and our pictures turned out great! Our photographer was Palo. We selected him based on a number of albums that we viewed when we met with studio represenatives. The communication between the studio, my husband and I, and the photographer was excellent. I spoke with our photographer on the phone about a week before the wedding-and it was great, we were on the same page about everything! Like I said, we were extremely happy with our pictures. We had a ton of great shots and the best part was that we hardly even knew the photographer was there. We aren't using their album services but their communication, price, and our photographer were great! read more

I was warned not to go cheap on the wedding photographer, but being the cheapskate I am, I didn't listen. Our pictures were a major disappointment. Photographs were often taken at terrible angles, missing major portions of our wedding. For example, our vows and our lighting of the unity candle were important moments to us. But all the photographer managed to catch seemed to be our backs. There was plenty of room to maneuver for better angles, but apparently the photographer felt content to stand way back of the action and take pictures of our backs instead. We also heard comments from our guests that the photographer was often caught just sitting there doing nothing during the reception. And it showed when we received our proofs. He captured very little of the 2 hour reception. As for the studio itself, while the initial pricetag looks low, they nickel and dime you with hidden fees, so it ends up being not-so-great a deal after all. They also make you drive to their office many times under the guise of some consultation, but its really just an opportunity for them to try and upsell you some junk service or product for an hour. All said, there were roughly 1200 photos, and we struggled to find 40 decent ones for our album. I feel like I wasted my money. Update: Just went back and watched our wedding video, and as I suspected, we noticed our photographer (name starts with L and rhymes with Moo) just hanging back and doing nothing. We had very few photos from the evening reception and we now know why....because our photographer was lazy. So disappointed. read more

I was so disappointed in this company as my wedding photographers. I cried over it and argued with the manager, Amy, over it, and obviously it can no longer be changed once it has happened. I had given very specific instructions before the wedding that I wanted photos of my dress, my heels, the details at the reception of all the centerpieces - not one photo was taken of any of these things. No photos of the reception hall (which I had worked SO hard to design with the florist), no photos of the center pieces, no photos of my wedding dress before I put it on, or my heels or jewelry, no photos like I wanted. Hilary gave us NO guidance at all when we were taking our photos. I had to ask her several times what my husband and I should do because I was too excited post-ceremony to think clearly of how to even stand for our couple photos. She just looked at me and didn't know how to answer. Hilary ruined the majority of the video footage of our ceremony as well, standing in the middle of the aisle in the front, NOT DUCKING IN BETWEEN SHOTS!!! How embarrassing and horrible. She literally just stood up in the middle of the aisle up front during our beautiful ceremony and was in the way of the videographer. Normally, a photographer takes their shot and then kneels out of the way somehow. Nope. Not Hilary. After the ceremony, after the bridal party shots, the photos with my husband, I asked Hilary if there was anything we were forgetting. She said no. We headed in for the reception for our entrance. The evening went on. 15 minutes before midnight, when Hilary was planned to leave, she reminds me that we have not taken any family photos yet. FIFTEEN MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT IS WHEN THE PHOTOGRAPHER REMINDED US THAT WE DID NOT TAKE ANY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY PHOTOS OUTSIDE. We took some crummy photos in the darkness of the reception hall. I was crushed. Then Hilary left at promptly 12:00 AM. There are so many more issues with this company. They do not edit the photos at all for the album or before giving them to you, unlike other beautiful photographers I've seen from other friends. This company wouldn't even give me a single photo after the wedding for over 4 months, which, again, most wedding photographers will give you a couple of the best shots from the wedding within a month. After all these complaints that I e-mailed to Amy, the manager, they did nothing. I did not feel validated for any of my complaints, and there was nothing at all done. No offer to retake some photos at a later date, nothing. I was crushed and still am every time I think back to it. What a disappointment. Do NOT use this wedding company for your photographer. Just don't. There are so many others that will do a better job. -Sarah Wattar read more

I would not recommend this place to anyone. Their prices look budget friendly but becareful...you get what you paid for. I would have paid more for better customer service and friendlier use of their website. In order to view your photos, you have to log in to their website, which is great but you cannot play your photos as a slide show, rather you have to click on each photo in order to enlarge them. For a professional photography company, you would think they would have something as simple as a slide show option available for viewing. The pics are also very low resolution. They also force you to make multiple appointments in order to discuss minor details instead of just giving instructions through email (one example was me having to make a trip from Downtown to their location in order to have a 30 minute discussion on how to access their website when any idiot can access their website if they would just send them a set of instructions in an email). They charge you for every little add on, including going over your appointment time (100 dollars an hour in 15 minute increments and to block images from your online album that you don't want to share with your friends and family on their website which is about 25 dollars). In addition, my package included an in studio engagement shoot which I did not receive. Overall, this place is unprofessional, they lack basic tools on their websites, their communication skills are terrible and they have EXTREMELY POOR customer service. read more

My husband and I had a very frustrating experience with The Wedding Studio. We picked them because in our initial meeting we loved their prices and their customer service. But it all ended as soon as we signed the dotted line. They are extremely hard to get a hold of. Whenever I call, all i get is their voicemail! It is very frustrating to play phone tag because they are never available. Their prices were affordable, but they don't tell you that in order to get what you really want(or what you think you are getting), there are numerous of upgrades that you will need. Joy is a joy to work with but she seems like she has way too many things on her plate. I took time out of my day to have a meeting with her and she was not prepared at all. I was telling her what my package should include and etc instead of her informing me. Our photographer was very shy and did not help us at all on poses or looks. Our engagement pictures turned out horrible because they were boring and in all the pictures my husband and I would not be in sync(he would be smiling, I wouldnt be and vice versa). I would think the photographer after doing this millions of time would have some creative ideas for pictures and would at least tell us "hey you both aren't smiling" Plus we told her we didn't want boring pictures but wanted unique shots and she said she was on board(apparently not!) In all it has been a very disappointing experience for a place we were so excited about. Our photographers are the only thing we regret from our wedding! read more

We absolutely loved our photographer, Anya. She took so many pictures and was willing to take whatever pictures we wanted (even the quirky, silly ones). We ended up with 851 pictures to choose from! Anya was also very flexible about how we wanted our day to flow, in regards to when and where she would be taking pictures. We would definitely recommend Anya! read more

Do not use them!! Talk about hidden costs!!! When we originally signed the contract I clearly asked if there are any additional costs added to the total and they stated that was the total other than any extensive editing which is understandable. When I called them to set up an appointment they all of the sudden added a $50 studio fee. lol a studio fee? a fee basically to meet with the photographer to talk about what end results we would like. ridiculous. It wasn't about the $50 ...Im sure there would have been other hidden costs for sure . Luckily the contract was cancelled. I def. do not recommend them to anyone. read more

i was quite dissapointed with the services with the Wedding Studio. They are not a very flexible company to work with and do not mention a lot of the hidden fees or charges they add onto whatever package you go with. Once you recieve your wedding photos, they first give you a low resolution CD and only give you 2 hours with them to decide how the layout of the album looks and what phtos you want to include. If you go over the 2 hours, they charge you 100 dollars for every hour! On top of that, our package included a free engagement session, but because they were not flexible with times for us to get our engagement photos taken (due to my husband living out of state for business) they charged us additional 150 dollars to take upscale engagement photos. After all was said and done, we pciked up our wedding album (which by the way you have to make an appointment from 8am-5pm Monday-Fri....a little inconvenient when everyone works) we saw 2 pages with incorrect photos. After 6 weeks of waiting for our album to be complete, we had to send it back to wait an additional 6 weeks for our corrected album. Our phtographer was supposed to be "the best one" and she missed a lot of photos I wished I would have had such as: individual phtos with the groom and each groomsman and best man and table shots of all our guests. She also did not pay attention to letting us know if we needed to fix how our dresses or tux's were laying or that the clasp of my necklace was showing. Overall, I was very disapointed with the quality of this company and wished we would have went with another company we really liked. BE CAREFUL! read more

I would give it less stars if I could. THE PHOTOGRAPHERS HERE ARE A JOKE!! We got better pictures of our wedding from friends with cell phones than we did from our "professional" photographers. If you are at all considering using The Wedding Studio for your special day, I would highly suggest you turn back now. My pictures were such a disappointment, that they actually make me mad when I look at them. I have such a hard time remembering how wonderful my wedding was, because all I have to remember the day are crappy images that no wedding photographer in their right mind should be ok presenting to a client. I had two photographer and I swear one of them had never picked up a camera before in her life. 90% of the proofs from here were BLURRY! How does a professional do that?? Angles are horrible, composition is ridiculous, color balance is off. But the worst part is that we don't even have bad pictures of the things that any 3rd rate wedding photographer should know to get pictures of. There is one picture of me while saying our vows and not a single one of my husband. There are ZERO pictures of our first kiss or of my husband's dance with his mom. I don't think the photographer ever even looked at the list of things I wanted pictures of because there are none of my shoes, our wedding rings, the flowers, or our families at the reception. Whoever runs this place is just as bad. After expressing my extreme disappointment, I was basically told to just deal with is because those are the pictures we got. I did not get any kind of discount on the 2nd photographer whose pictures were unusable. Nor did I get any kind of compensation on prints or a photo album. There is no sense of good customer service or compassion. I basically cried on the phone to Amy because I was just so overly disappointed in my pictures and was offered nothing in return. Just to reiterate: THIS COMPANY IS TERRIBLE. I would NEVER NEVER NEVER suggest anyone use them. read more

I originally booked the Wedding Studio last year and spoke with Joy. Then somewhere down the line communication changed and I was dealing with Amy. I don't know when this happened as I was not informed of the change until about 4 weeks before my wedding. My photographer was Cathy and she did a really great job. She was very kind, professional, and listened well. The only thing I really did NOT like was the communication. It left a lot to be desired when it came to contacting the actual studio. read more

My husband & i used the Wedding studio as our photographer and our DJ. We were very impressed with our pictures. Our photographer was amazing. She took plenty of shots and we so many great ones to choose from. She was willing to go in the snow for perfect winter wedding shots! My parents were very pleased with her as well! The staff at the office itself was very helpful & pleasant! However, our DJ i was not a fan of. He played only a few songs of our 50 + list! & was not getting the crowd up at all. He was mono-tone through the whole night & did not sound excited. Very disappointed... I would not recommend using their DJ, but Most def recommend the photography!! read more

The Wedding Studio was amazing to work with. They will sit you down and have a conversation of exactly the type of photography you are looking for and then select a photographer that meets your vision and needs. Anna was amazing to work with and I highly recommend her if you are going to use the Wedding Studio. She has a great sense of humor and really goes out of her way to make sure you are happy with the photographs you are taking the day of the wedding. They also have a great relationship with the Sound of the Times DJ service which we also used for our wedding. read more

STAY AWAY FROM THE WEDDING STUDIO! Worst experience and by far the only regret of my entire wedding was working with them. We went in and spoke to joy (she's sweet and really nice) she sat with us to figure out what we wanted in a photographer, outspoken to keep bridal party inline, creative, someone who posed us to look natural but not overdosed. Simple, right? So she showed us some albums of photographers work and we picked Jenessa. MISTAKE NUMBER ONE. The week of your wedding photographer calls you to see what you are thinking and where you will be shooting. I had asked her if she recommended any nice out door spots in Schaumburg area (in August) and she said "Nope" Come the day of the wedding she shows up to my moms house where we are getting ready I show her some ideas of pictures I wanted and did not get ONE SINGLE PICTURE I HAD ASKED FOR. She basically stood In the back of our church (literally the back all our pictures are so far away I couldn't zoom in enough on low resolution to see them because it pixelated) and took pictures of the backs of heads. It poured the day of the wedding so we didn't get to do outdoor pictures so I was looking for Jenessa input to see what would look good for our wedding photos, seeing she was the professional. NO DIRECTION, my bridal party had to keep searching for her, and once we took pictures she SAT ON THE GROUND for all of them! She then came to find us way into the night (after drinking and partying) to do pictures of my husband an I. We knew we weren't going to get the best quality pictures but we were hoping she was good at her job and there were going to be a few usable pictures. WRONG! Got our proofs back so we could pick out which ones we wanted in the album and all I could do was cry. My brother in law is cut out of the only good picture of my groomsmen, she has a picture of our first kiss That is the wall behind us and our heads at the very bottom of screen, the list goes on. I called the studio to let them know how disappointed I was and Amy (the owner) was very condescending to me and speaking to me like I was a child. So being and emotional bride I told her she could deal with my husband. From that point forward she REFUSED to speak to me after I calmed down and would only let him know what was going on...very unprofessional in my opinion. She basically said pick out the pictures you "think are the best" considering we couldn't see ourselves in them and she would put out book together. Her other option was we could do a digital album ,because Jenessa is a photo journalistic photographer, and those would look better in there. Her solution was for us to upgrade our book and pay an extra $375 to fix their mistake of pairing us with the wrong style photographer (which she admitted to) Amy and her staff are so cowardly the MAILED us our wedding album because they couldn't face me and my husband while I cry my eyes out because the book we have is a joke! I'm now creating a wedding album on my own from friends and family's photos. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GO ELSE WHERE! Wish I could give them 0 stars read more

Let me start by saying that this rating is more of a reflection on our photographer and not on the Wedding Studio as a whole as the company's owner, Amy, was fantastic to work with. She was quick to respond to phone calls and emails, was professional, and proactive in all of her communication throughout the entire process. Even after an error, she sent us a free gift for our troubles. Any time we had a concern, she was quick to look into the issue and have it resolved in a timely manner. To say I am disappointed with my pictures is a huge understatement. Based on what we were looking for in a photographer (photojournalistic style, minimal guest interaction, etc.), Hilary was suggested to us and after looking at her pictures, we decided to book Hilary for our wedding. We did our engagement shoot with Hilary at a location she recommended near her home. The location was not bad but did not offer a wide variety of backdrops. When we got started, Hilary had us do the same three poses multiple times: stand together and smile. Now look at each other. Now kiss. And repeat. While I was looking for candid pictures and know what that entails, we were not given many suggestions for actions in order to get a variety of pictures. After receiving our pictures, I was quite upset with how they turned out but convinced myself it was due to engagement sessions needing to be more posed. On the day of the wedding, Hilary was punctual and got started right away. I don't have a huge complaint about the pre-wedding photos however; I do feel that attention to detail could have been better. For our ceremony, she pretty much stayed in one spot the entire time and all of our pictures look the same. For entrances, rather than take multiple of the pairings coming down the aisle, she would take one picture, look at it, and wait for the next group (I know this from our video and based on the photos received). The photos that I am most upset about are all of the ones after the ceremony into the reception. Again, we were told to do the same 3 poses as our engagement pictures with no suggestions for other pictures. We spent 5 minutes arguing about a group shot I wanted near water and Hilary was adamant that the lighting was not good. Eventually, she took the picture and it is the only picture of my entire bridal party outside of the church photo (of which there is also one picture). While I could go on and on about the complaints I have from our experience with Hilary, overall, I have OK pictures. I would not label them as great pictures and I do not like them enough to show them off to family and friends. Even selecting 50 pictures for our wedding album was a struggle. Seeing friends' wedding photos and the variety of pictures they have, and the attention to detail that was given, upsets me as that was what I was hoping for for my own pictures. I would definitely recommend using the Wedding Studio for wedding photography but would HIGHLY recommend using a photographer other than Hilary so that you do not experience the same disappointment that we did. read more

We had the pleasure of working with Trish for our wedding day. She was fantastic. She was very sweet and respectful of everyone throughout the entire night. She had great pose ideas and took so many pictures. I would definitely recommend Trish to anyone. read more

Hired Trish as our photographer based on her style of photos. She showed up at our hotel "high on pain medication" ( and literally on drugs ) because of neck pain? No call, nothing. She was there for 5 minutes. She snuck out and in popped a replacement that didn't even work for the wedding studio - he said it was the first wedding he has shot in 20 years and we were the toughest crowd he's ever had. Received my photos a few weeks later and balled. I didnt share them with anyone that attended our wedding - talk about unflattering shots!!!!!!! I called Amy after receiving the photos and she was unreceptive and explained that Trish had a sore neck and found us the best replacement possible. I will remember for the rest of my life how horrible my wedding photography experience was. And I have about 20 photos to represent the day (out of ~400)... read more

I am creating a yelp account for the sole purpose of warning other couple to NOT USE THE WEDDING STUDIO. We are very displeased with our wedding pictures. The Wedding Studio will withhold your high res images until your album is complete, if you choose to do an album, and then it still took a month to get the album and pictures after we completed it all. It took 3 MONTHS for us to finally receive our pictures. Our photographer was also sub-par. We received very little direction when it came time to take the pictures. Whether it was family pictures in the church, or wedding party pictures before the reception, she gave us very little input in regards to posses or even where to stand to get even spacing between people. One in every 4 pictures is out of focus, and those pictures (by chance) are the ones that everybody looks great in. Many of our pictures are horribley white washed, even after post editing. If i could go back and never write the check for this company's service, I wouldn't think twice. They were the only thing at our wedding we wish we could have changed. Thank god I can just have my wedding pictures retaken.... read more

If I could give 2.5 stars instead of 2 I would. My husband and I hired the Wedding Studio to photograph our wedding in October 08. Here's the pluses: The pictures were fantastic. We were able to plan our whole digital album and it's one of the best albums we have ever seen. The people that work there are really nice and helpful and respond quickly to your needs. The reason for the lower rating is because if you want anything done, you need to make an appointment. No joke--EVERYTHING needs an appointment. I just wanted to pick up the album but I couldn't unless I scheduled something. Also, the prices for the actual package aren't horrible but the prices for ordering individual pictures are the highest I have seen. (When we booked with them, we didn't realize the prices didn't include tax plus shipping and handling.) Many of my family members decided not to order pictures because they felt they were getting ripped off. That really sucks for us too because in order to get a high resolution CD of our proofs, we needed to get a certain dollar amount of pictures ordered. All in all they were okay, but I wish we would have shopped around a bit more. You really do get what you pay for! read more

We had a horrible experience across the board. Our brother used The Wedding Studio and recommended them due to the low price, but what a mistake we made. They did a great job on the sales side. We were promised and guaranteed satisfaction, but I will get to that later. First off, the DJ that they provided to us (Jevon), was missing in action for a week or so immediately preceding our wedding. We left numerous voice and electronic messages that went un-answered. Finally, a day or so prior to the wedding, he did call and apologize, saying that he went out of town and his cell phone was inoperable. On our wedding day, Jevon never made it!!! He did however send an alternate DJ who did not have the entire play-list, but at least we had some music...Not a pleasant experience for our WEDDING!!! We also hired a photographer through The Wedding Studio. Overall, I would rate the photographer at 3.5 out of 10. I have a background in photography, and let the Wedding Studio know this. I expected at least an average photographer, but did not receive one. To be specific, the photographer took pictures at approximately 5 out of 10 rating, but put almost ZERO time into any post-processing. When I do a wedding shoot, I spend more than 3 times as much time doing post-processing as the actual shoot time. RJ, the photographer that we used must have used the batch processing option on 90% or more of the pictures. OK, here is my biggest gripe. I can understand having issues with a photographer or a DJ, but the worst experience that I had was dealing on the phone with Joy Ballenger, who incidentally was according to her "out of the office on maternity leave" at the time of our wedding. She spent time on the phone with my wife essentially telling us that "The Client is the problem." She told us how we should have dealt with the issues better, or how they are not responsible for the actions of the DJ - Great customer service... No! I will not use them again or recommend them to anyone. She also started to blame the other employees of The Wedding Studio. If you are planning on using that company, do yourself a favor. 1) Make sure that you get something in writing indicating that there is a "damages clause" should the DJ not show up or perform to some minimum level. 2) Know that all of the photo albums that they show you will NOT look like the pictures that you will receive - They will not crop the photos very well requiring you to spend more money to enlarge and re-crop correctly. And 3) My wife was crying 2 days before our wedding over the possibility of having NO DJ. After our wedding, the pictures were nowhere near the level of what we expected - More tears. DO NOT PUT YOUR LOVED ONE THROUGH THIS! read more

Joy and Amy will invite you in and make you feel like you are getting a lot more than you really get for their packages, including personalized service. The only day Joy knew who we were was the first day we went in and after that I got some fake excuse for not remembering our names even though we had scheduled appointments. Additionally she told us she couldn't go lower on package price because she wouldn't be making any money on it, but when we hesitated for a few weeks, she came down to our offer on the package. Their engagement sessions are in studio on a back drop and unimpressive compared to what I've seen other couples get. Our pictures ended up being framed poorly, not centered, and poor choices of background. I guess it was wrong of me to assume a professional photographer would do those automatically. Additionally our photographer forgot a light at one point and caused a delay in our reception while she went back to her car. The software they use for their albums is outdated and difficult to work with, and occasionally I had to choose a less favorite picture for my album because of the unadjustable window size and pre-set location on the page that your picture needs to fit into. Furthermore we have been told if we give a good review online, there are freebie/incentives so that might be skewing their rating. I gave them two stars for being reasonably priced, and the girl who put together our album was really helpful, but if you are in the Schaumburg area, there are plenty of other photography studios in that price range to check out. The quality and service I thought I was getting after meeting with them was not met. I was really excited to work with them when we booked, but I have been disappointed in their service ever since. read more

We used the wedding studio for our wedding. We thought our pictures turned out great until we took a closer look. We noticed that almost all of our pictures are blurry. If we try to print our pictures, we get an alert saying the resolution is too low, even though we were told they were high resolution. We've had people help us with printing the photos and they said the photographer didn't use high enough pixels. So basically, we paid a lot of money for blurry wedding photos. :( read more

I have mixed feelings about this place. I got married a year ago. My husband and I had Paul (I think his last name is Brander) for our photographer. Neither of us are satisfied with his work. For many posed shots he took with just my husband and I he directed my husband to lean in close to me. The results are that he looks hunched over in many of them--like he's slouching. In most group shots I'm not smiling; I was distracted b/c there was drama with my family b/c my ***hole father didn't show up. (We did group shots before the wedding. My mom and my sisters were angry at him for not showing up and talked to him on the phone.) I would've liked Paul to have REMINDED me to smile despite the drama since these pictures will live on forever! In a nutshell, I think Paul was a bit amateurish as a photographer and should've directed us better. Other than this photographer issue the manager/owner of the company (Amy I think) was very cordial and professional with us and a pleasure to work with. Our wedding album also turned out beautiful. read more

When we first met with Joy at the wedding studio we really felt good about our choice. Then as it got closer to our wedding I don't know if Joy left or what but now we dealt with someone else and the quality of communication went down. The day of the wedding the photographer not only didn't take the pictures I asked, but showed up dressed as if she was attending a sporting event, and then disappeared twice for over 20 minutes and we had to have people start looking for her. At one point my mother in law found her in the bar talking with someone like they were catching up when she should have been taking pictures for us. We had a large quantity of pictures but when it came to quality we were disappointed. When looking at the studios website you think that is the type of fun pictures and quality you will get but that isn't what happened in our case. I am a very easy going person and not very demanding but I feel like maybe if I turned in to a typical "bridezilla" maybe I would have gotten what I had asked for but I don't feel you should have to be that way when you are paying a large amount of money for a service. Since our wedding I have seen other people's photos from their weddings or weddings attended and it just makes me more upset and disappointed when I see our pictures. read more