RumblyTummy -
Well, as far as my post goes, at least, I do disagree with you.
For our overall wedding pictures, we actually WANTED to go with Disney photography originally, as we figured it would be easier to let Disney handle it all. But we had major issues with how very MUCH more the digital images cost than any outside photographer. And we were doing an Escape wedding - budget was very much an issue for us. We were willing to add extra hours for the photographer, because we knew we were going to need it, but when we tried to talk to Disney about all of what we wanted and felt was reasonable, they were extremely inflexible. We didn't get a good feeling for what we could expect in a photographer at all. And they were completely inflexible on the prices, even when we told them we would be willing to give up the album and prints altogether to get the digital images.
So, we went with an outside photographer. Now, from things I'm reading on here, they have changed things. The way they have changed it now sounds at least closer to what we were asking for last year at this time. So it does sound like they were listening - maybe they were starting to lose a lot of business to outside vendors, and most were giving the same reasons we were.
And as far as our MK shoot - I never compared it to anything but other MK shoots. And compared to others, ours was horrible. Most of the shots he took, he took one or at most two of, so he didn't bother to get the array of colors with the castle. And in any one of them, if one of us happened to blink, move, make a funny face, or whatever, oh well, that's what we got. He took shots with things in the shot that shouldn't have been there. We got very few backgrounds. We had shadows across our faces in quite a few of the shots. Not to mention the "horror style" balcony shots, which were taken at an angle from below, so you can't really see our faces, instead of looking like they were taken from straight on, which is normal. And after having us climb up in the balcony (which is where you get the dirtiest during the shoot BTW) he only took 3 pictures! Didn't even take any of us kissing while up there. And we had no way of telling how many he was taking while we were up there.
And we were subjected to a barrage of questions about why we chose an outside photographer, why we should have picked Disney, why certain of the "favored" outside photographers were way overrated, etc., the entire time.
And as I mentioned before, he was sick. He said he had ulcers. Well, whatever the cause, doesn't really matter. As I said, I would normally have sympathy for someone being sick. But when someone's paying that much for a photo session, it isn't right to let being sick affect the work, regardless of the reason. He was stopping to just kind of stand and rest for a few minutes all through the session. And in the middle of it, he disappeared off to the bathroom for over 20 minutes. But we still had a hard limit of when we had to be out of the park. So our session was shortchanged.
None of this has to do with style or comparing to other photographers. This has to do with basic professional photography skills and basic professionalism.
And when we expressed all this to Disney, we were told they didn't really see any problems with our pictures. They even tried to tell us that ALL the balcony shots get shot at an angle like ours, because there is no way to get a straight on shot of the faces like we were talking about, despite the fact that every single other MK shoot I've seen has had perfectly angled balcony shots. And the concessions they were offering were next to nothing. Even a reshoot - for us, figuring in the extra costs a reshoot would end up costing us, we can't justify it.
Mind you, I'm not necessarily trying to scare anyone away from doing an MK shoot. Believe me - I hated paying how much we did, and would never have considered it if I didn't think the pictures would be worth it. And based on what I'd seen, I thought they would be. Most MK shoots are absolutely stunning, and while rather expensive, if it's what you really want, in the end, I'm sure you don't regret paying the money.
But when you pay that much and get treated the way we did, and get the kind of pictures we did - pictures I feel most amateurs could have done a better job taking - then you feel Disney has a responsibility to do something about it to make it right. And I also want others to be aware, so they are at least going into this with their eyes open. I don't know if there's anything they can do to keep this from happening to them. But me... well, if I could go back and do anything over, I think I would have insisted that we call and complain immediately - the day after the wedding - about the way he acted, the shortness of our session, etc. Maybe we could have gotten them to show us the pictures immediately, and then gotten the reshoot done while we were still down there, and gotten them to pay for doing my hair and makeup again, or gotten them to have Disney people do it.
Well, as far as my post goes, at least, I do disagree with you.
For our overall wedding pictures, we actually WANTED to go with Disney photography originally, as we figured it would be easier to let Disney handle it all. But we had major issues with how very MUCH more the digital images cost than any outside photographer. And we were doing an Escape wedding - budget was very much an issue for us. We were willing to add extra hours for the photographer, because we knew we were going to need it, but when we tried to talk to Disney about all of what we wanted and felt was reasonable, they were extremely inflexible. We didn't get a good feeling for what we could expect in a photographer at all. And they were completely inflexible on the prices, even when we told them we would be willing to give up the album and prints altogether to get the digital images.
So, we went with an outside photographer. Now, from things I'm reading on here, they have changed things. The way they have changed it now sounds at least closer to what we were asking for last year at this time. So it does sound like they were listening - maybe they were starting to lose a lot of business to outside vendors, and most were giving the same reasons we were.
And as far as our MK shoot - I never compared it to anything but other MK shoots. And compared to others, ours was horrible. Most of the shots he took, he took one or at most two of, so he didn't bother to get the array of colors with the castle. And in any one of them, if one of us happened to blink, move, make a funny face, or whatever, oh well, that's what we got. He took shots with things in the shot that shouldn't have been there. We got very few backgrounds. We had shadows across our faces in quite a few of the shots. Not to mention the "horror style" balcony shots, which were taken at an angle from below, so you can't really see our faces, instead of looking like they were taken from straight on, which is normal. And after having us climb up in the balcony (which is where you get the dirtiest during the shoot BTW) he only took 3 pictures! Didn't even take any of us kissing while up there. And we had no way of telling how many he was taking while we were up there.
And we were subjected to a barrage of questions about why we chose an outside photographer, why we should have picked Disney, why certain of the "favored" outside photographers were way overrated, etc., the entire time.
And as I mentioned before, he was sick. He said he had ulcers. Well, whatever the cause, doesn't really matter. As I said, I would normally have sympathy for someone being sick. But when someone's paying that much for a photo session, it isn't right to let being sick affect the work, regardless of the reason. He was stopping to just kind of stand and rest for a few minutes all through the session. And in the middle of it, he disappeared off to the bathroom for over 20 minutes. But we still had a hard limit of when we had to be out of the park. So our session was shortchanged.
None of this has to do with style or comparing to other photographers. This has to do with basic professional photography skills and basic professionalism.
And when we expressed all this to Disney, we were told they didn't really see any problems with our pictures. They even tried to tell us that ALL the balcony shots get shot at an angle like ours, because there is no way to get a straight on shot of the faces like we were talking about, despite the fact that every single other MK shoot I've seen has had perfectly angled balcony shots. And the concessions they were offering were next to nothing. Even a reshoot - for us, figuring in the extra costs a reshoot would end up costing us, we can't justify it.
Mind you, I'm not necessarily trying to scare anyone away from doing an MK shoot. Believe me - I hated paying how much we did, and would never have considered it if I didn't think the pictures would be worth it. And based on what I'd seen, I thought they would be. Most MK shoots are absolutely stunning, and while rather expensive, if it's what you really want, in the end, I'm sure you don't regret paying the money.
But when you pay that much and get treated the way we did, and get the kind of pictures we did - pictures I feel most amateurs could have done a better job taking - then you feel Disney has a responsibility to do something about it to make it right. And I also want others to be aware, so they are at least going into this with their eyes open. I don't know if there's anything they can do to keep this from happening to them. But me... well, if I could go back and do anything over, I think I would have insisted that we call and complain immediately - the day after the wedding - about the way he acted, the shortness of our session, etc. Maybe we could have gotten them to show us the pictures immediately, and then gotten the reshoot done while we were still down there, and gotten them to pay for doing my hair and makeup again, or gotten them to have Disney people do it.
