Wedding Photographer To Avoid - Weddings By Woodbury

A little over 3 months ago, my family received an invitation to participate as models for a "Natural Light Photography Class." In return for us volunteering as models, our family was promised a CD of all the pictures taken of us, with no copyright restrictions. We were told that it would take approximately 2 weeks for us to receive our CD.

This was a big deal for our family -- free professional prints -- and all we had to do was have fun and smile for the camera. So we signed up, and showed up at the designated location at the bright and early hour of 8 AM.

Unfortunately, the photographer teacher didn't have as good of a turn out as expected and we spent a large amount of time waiting around for the photographer as there were only 2 or 3 photographers instead of the 8-10 (best guess) that were supposed to be there. Still, we were excited for the opportunity, and we did as we were requested.

Now, the photographer is the owner of Weddings By Woodbury. I believe, based on several conversations and voice mail messages that this is a joint effort with his wife. And that is why I am saying NOT to give these people your business.

On the bright side, in person this couple is friendly and nice. Lots of fun! The samples of the photos they have taken are gorgeous. They definitely have the talent and skills to take gorgeous photos of your special day.

However, their customer service is terrible. At three weeks after the photo shoot, I called and inquired about our CD. No one returned my call. At four weeks, I tried again. Again, no one returned my call. I finally got a call at six weeks where I was informed that they were working on "weddings" and didn't have time to do our pictures as we weren't paying customers. At about 11 to 12 weeks, I was informed that the CD would be mailed within the week and that I could view our pictures online. Indeed, our pictures were online - but I couldn't do anything with them other than view them unless I wanted to order the pictures from them. The CD did indeed show up within the week, however all of our pictures weren't on them. I might not have cared about that, except the pictures that turned out the best were the ones that were not on the CD. I called -- this was about two weeks ago -- and requested another CD. No one has returned my call, nor has another CD appeared in the mail. I called again this morning (it will be 14 weeks tomorrow since our original photo shoot), and we will see if anyone will return my call this time.

I am not impressed AT ALL with the customer service that this company offers. Some people might argue that Weddings By Woodbury is correct - that I am not a paying customer - but I argue that my family and I were actually employees as they required a service, we provided it, yet we have not received our compensation. Either way, this company is NO GOOD.

I've resisted posting about this, hoping to give them the benefit of the doubt. But here's to the POWER OF THE BLOG. Will I run them out of business? Doubtful - nor do I really want too. But if it makes someone think twice about using them, serves as an "I told you so" to someone who reads this but chooses to use them anyway, or encourages Weddings By Woodbury to pull their head out of the sand and start treating their customers with respect -- then I think I've accomplished something.

*** Weddings By Woodbury is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. ***