Photographer Peril

On Monday, I received a phone call from our best photographer option. She received my e-mail with my questions and wants and also said they posted photos from Tensing Pen on their blog behind a password. She asked if I had any other questions and apologized for taking so long to get back to me. I was ELATED. She said I will receive an e-mail with a password and pricing for all of the elements I asked for. PROGRESS - so I thought. It is now Sunday and I haven't heard anything. I've been away all week at a conference with no time to call or e-mail. I have to say once again I'm more than disappointed in their customer service...

Other ways to capture our wedding weekend

I've written about our photographer/videographer situation and nothing has changed in that department unfortunately but from the beginning I also wanted to find an easy way to capture the photos from our guests in one easy place we can all upload and download from. We have some seriously talented friends and there is no way we can have a pro at every event all weekend long.

I first thought about Flickr but that requires an account so it's not quite ideal. Early on I came across Wedding Turtle. They allow you to create a unique url and e-mail address. Guests can upload or email their photos as attachements and they all appear on the website. We can categorize and organize all of the guest photos as well. They even send you cards to tell your guests about the service! So far this is the frontrunner for the photo aspect of the weekend.

A few days ago, I also came across WedIt. They send you 5 HD cameras to give to guests and then you send them back and they edit the footage into a wedding video to a song of your choice. That would be a perfect way to capture all of the special moments from the entire weekend. The sample videos are absolutely adorable. When I started looking at the price though, I realized that the video cameras are WAYY cheaper than what they charge. So Ben and I decided we'll just buy 5-6 HD flip cameras so our guests can pass them around all weekend and then we'll take them home and edit them. Ben is seriously amazing at these things (he made a great videos from Langerado music festival, our clearwater beach vacation, and animal enrichment at the zoo). So now the goal is to find these cameras for under $100. We figure we can resell them after the wedding and will probably only end up costing us about $50 for camera. Our amazing friends will be great videographers. We also get to see EVERY SINGLE minute those cameras catch and relive it all.

We're still going to enlist a photographer and videographer to capture the ceremony and usual elements of the reception but also want to capture moments from the entire weekend. We're very excited about these & this way hopefully no unflattering photos of me will end up on Facebook!

So listen up wedding guests - we're counting on you!

Photographer Peril

Once we had a venue, next on my list was to book our other big vendors - photography & videography. Tensing Pen requires that we use their preferred vendors and the coordinator quickly sent me 2. After checking out both of their websites, I had a favorite but decided to e-mail both for information. The runner-up was unavailable and sent me the information for one of their associates that was and I was NOT impressed with his photography. So my decision should be easy right?!? WRONG!

When I first contacted our favorite photographer they were available, had reasonable prices, and mentioned that they were shooting 2 weddings at Tensing Pen in the coming weeks and would send me a link to the photos when they were done. GREAT! This was back in June. Come July, still nothing so I e-mailed to check-in. A little while later I get a reply that they are still being edited but should be up soon. A couple of weeks go by and still nothing. This time I'm told that the couples didn't want their photos posted on the blog but some of them would be posted on a private site and a password would be sent to me by the end of the week. Well it is now September and I haven't seen any photos from Tensing Pen like I was told I would.

At this point I decided to e-mail Tensing Pen's coordinator about our situation. She immediately followed up with both photographers. Runner-up claimed to have never heard from us and the favorites just told her to remind me that not all couples want to share their photos but they were still working on photos done at Tensing Pen. I thanked the coordinator and set her straight about our runner-up contacting us and giving us an associate that we were NOT thrilled with. I e-mailed the favorite for more detailed information about the packages to see if they can accomplish what we (I) want.

It costs $500 to book a vendor outside of Tensing Pen. If I start doing research now and contacting new photographers on Jamaica I'l run into plenty that aren't available on our date. Flying in photographers from elsewhere is out of the question because of budget. I'm close to booking the favorite because I'm afraid I'll end up without a photographer if I don't book soon. Their work on their website and blog is beautiful and they offer a trash the dress session. So what would you do?