Ladies, if you are going to hire a vendor, don' t hire the cheapest one you can find! As a friend of mine says, the ones who under price the market know their value and by willingly underpricing the market their services are usually worth nothing in the end.
I attended a wedding in Chicago this weekend. The identities are changed to protect the guilty. ;-) Stacey went all out for her wedding. She contracted the best country club reception hall she could find. Hired the best florist, the best pastry chef, had a cake that was to die for. The wedding was gorgeous, the reception a fantasy from a dream. The photographer and videographer were from hell! The photographer claims to have had 20 years in the wedding industry but evidently never learned to bring backup equipment. His digital camera died during the formals after the ceremony. He declared he he had to run home and get a backup and would see everyone at the reception. We did not see him again until the cake had been cut nearly 4 hours later.
The videograher was something else. They showed up 1 hour before the wedding as they were contracted to and beside setting up their equipment, they did nothing until the wedding started. Lost was the bride arriving by carriage. The groom arriving with his frat brothers. They actually carried him into the church. No with this videographer he started filming when the processional started.
At the reception he filmed the introductions, the toats, the cake, the first dance, the father daughter dance, the mother son dance, then sat down during the bridal party dance and did nothing and sat there for another 2 hours until the bouquet and garter tosses. Oh and I noticed when the frat brothers serenaded the bride, his camera was pointed at the floor. This took place between the bouquet and garter tosses so it wasn't like he wasn't standing there!
So he missed Stacey dancing with her grandfather, John dancing with his grandma. Stacey's mom dancing with her new son-in-law and the list goes on and on. At one point during the reception I asked Stacey what he was hired to do and she said "film everything". She was really too preoccupied to notice my hint and nothing was ever done. And after the photographer went missing in action I didn't have much of a heart to say anything. Maybe it's my bad for not saying anything but when you are a guest what is the proper thing to do.
This wasn't a cheap wedding, their budget was $50,000 but i the end, two of the most important services, the ones who document the memories, Stacey went cheap on. The photographer was $950 and went missing for 4 hours and the videographer was $500 and didn't do anything, missing tons of memories.
-Amy
Labels: cheap wedding vendors, photographers, videographers
