Has anyone NOT ordered pictures from their photographer?

[zoebartlett]

Kind of a long-winded vent here. I''m not sure what I''m looking for in terms of advice, etc., but I wanted to vent a bit and see if anyone else had this experience or something similar.

We got married 1.5 years ago, and my husband and I STILL haven''t ordered any pictures or an album. We were planning on ordering an album for each set pf parents but our photographer actually gave them albums for free. We did receive a CD set to music, and we''ve watched that a few times, but I can''t get rid of this nagging feeling that we should also order prints.

Part of our reasoning for not ordering pictures at first was that my husband lost his job 4 months after our wedding, so we needed to save rather than spend on something so "frivolous." Another reason is that, while we liked our photographer, we felt that she missed a few things that we had specified that we really wanted At the time though, we were so caught up with the day that we didn''t realize that certain things on our wish list weren''t being done. For example:

1. Most of our photos were formal/posed, not candids. That wasn''t the look we were going for.
2. The grounds of the venue are gorgeous (plenty of opportunities there), but all of our pics were taken under the same darn tree on the property.
3. There weren''t a lot of detail shots, which I had specified wanting. There are some, just not as many as I wanted.
4. The photographer took posed shots of everyone at each table except one table (my sister''s). At the time, not everyone was there so she was going to return later to take a pic but forgot.
5. We have no formal pics taken of my dad''s side of the family, just my mom''s. I should have thought of this at the time, but I was caught up in the day, as I mentioned, so I didn''t.

I hate to say this because we did like our photographer overall, but she wasn''t our first or even second choice. We ultimately chose her because of budgetary reasons, and she came highly recommended from a few friends and family members (who had family portraits done but not wedding pics). I look at all the magazine style/artsy pictures here and I think, "THAT''S what we wanted!"

So much time has passed and I''d feel weird contacting her now, but it would be nice to have a few pictures of our wedding day.

Has this happened to you?

 

[Haven]

I''m sorry your photos didn''t turn out as you wanted, Zoe. I know how disappointing that can be.

We didn''t order any pictures from our photographer because he did a horrible job and the last thing I wanted to do was to spend any more money on his services.

We did receive a CD with high quality proofs of all of our photos. Originally I was too upset to even do anything with them, but now that I''ve had a lot of time to get over it I''d like to find someone who can do some Photoshop magic on them so we can come up with enough photos to put in one of those photo albums you make online.

I would order some shots if I were you. We only have one actual photo from our wedding, a friend printed it out and gave it to us shortly after we were married. I love having it, and I wish we could have more without paying someone to make the ones we do have look decent.

 

[Bella_mezzo]

That didn''t happen to me, but....

Zoe, I''m sorry that your shots weren''t what you wanted. If there are some you want to get I would definitely call the photographer and order them. It''s nice to have a few formal shots from the wedding and even if you are missing some that you wanted, it''s nice to have the ones you can get prints of.

Haven, That''s too bad you disliked your pics/photog so much

I have you find photoshop wizard

We made our album on mypublisher.com and LOVED it. The software is easy to use and the print and paper quality is the best I found (I looked at pretty much every vendor

)

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

I got a photo cd from my photog as well as one proof for each photo, I used what he gave me and made my own album online, I''m not the kid of person who needs or even wants an 11x14 of my wedding picture, albums are just fine, so I never bothered getting enlargements or anything like that.

 

[wannaBMrsH]

I received all hi-resolution images on CDs from our photographer and made my own albums on blurb.com...

Haven, that is truly terrible about your photos. I would highly recommend craigslist to find a graphic designer...I''ve always been able to find services from those looking to get into the business for a fraction of the cost.

The other thing is that if you live near a college, you might be able to find a student willing to work on them for even cheaper.

We ended up missing a number of photos as well (no pictures of DH and me with the kids alone, no photos of the flower girl/ring bearer in their capacity, no pics of me and my sister(s), a few details shots are missing, etc.) but overall, we were so thrilled with all of the photos that we did receive that we were thrilled.

I hope it works out for everyone, because everyone should have at least a few pictures of their wedding day that they LOVE!

 

[elrohwen]

We have already paid for our pics and albums, but haven't gotten around to requesting them or choosing which pics we want. I like our pictures, but I'm not *in love* with them (for a lot of the same reasons you mentioned, though I can partially blame myself that I didn't ask for some of those things more specifically). And putting together a whole album just seems like a lot of effort

We do have the hi res dvd with all of the images, so I feel like I can just sort through those any time I want to see pics. I know we have to do the album eventually because our parents really want theirs, and because we've already paid for it, but I'm honestly in no rush.

 

[zoebartlett]

Haven -- I remember how disappointed you were, and I know that you were planning on asking someone to help you out.

WanntB -- a friend of mine said that all we really needed was one picture, one GREAT shot, and I do think we got it. (I posted it on here once before.) I feel lucky for that.

I just reread my first post, and I hope I didn''t come across as complaining about nothing. I know it''s not the end of the world, and I feel funny complaining so long after the fact. We do like how some of our pictures came out, so I will put an order in for those eventually. I think I''ll skip getting an album though. We thought of buying the CD of all photos, but we didn''t want to pay that much for them. Apparently our photographer keeps all images (she doesn''t get rid of them after a certain amount of time like some photographers do), so I''m sure I can get back to her any time and request what we want.

 

[zoebartlett]

Haven -- I remember how disappointed you were, and I know that you were planning on asking someone to help you out.

WannaB -- a friend of mine said that all we really needed was one picture, one GREAT shot, and I do think we got it. (I posted it on here once before.) I feel lucky for that.

Thanks Bella!

I just reread my first post, and I hope I didn''t come across as complaining about nothing. I know it''s not the end of the world, and I feel funny complaining so long after the fact. We do like how some of our pictures came out, so I will put an order in for those eventually. I think I''ll skip getting an album though. We thought of buying the CD of all photos, but we didn''t want to pay that much for them. Apparently our photographer keeps all images (she doesn''t get rid of them after a certain amount of time like some photographers do), so I''m sure I can get back to her any time and request what we want.

 

[Smurfysmiles]

Our photographer didn't do the candid shots we wanted either which really pissed me off, almost a third of the pictures are stuffy and posed...not cool. Luckily we got some good candids from the guests. Also I got the high quality disk since I am a graphic designer it did not make sense to have them edit the photos for me.

Haven- If you'd like to save a bit of money and post a couple pictures you wanted photoshopped on here I wouldn't mind helping out and it's not like you'd have to use them if you didn't like them since I wouldn't charge you anything being a fellow ps-er I actually don't have much going on at work this week lol

 

[Keepingthefaith21]

We have only been married a few months but...

...no photos have been printed (other than a book we gave to DH''s parents for Christmas).

I am doubtful I will ever print photos (we have every photo on CD just in case I ever warm up to the idea). As more times goes by, I am less and less happy with how I looked on our wedding day. I have heard oh-so-MANY negative comments from my parents and my MIL about "missing photos" (i.e. photos that they wanted to have but never thought to grab the photographer and ASK her to do) that I just don''t want to look at or think about the wedding photos. Looking at them only makes me feel horribly that there were not more portrait photos that the parents were hoping for. I''ve grown so disatisfied with my appearance on the day that I can''t even bring myself to post many photos here.

 

[EHR2009]

Date: 1/2/2010 12:13:47 PM
Author: Asscherhalo_lover
I got a photo cd from my photog as well as one proof for each photo, I used what he gave me and made my own album online, I''m not the kid of person who needs or even wants an 11x14 of my wedding picture, albums are just fine, so I never bothered getting enlargements or anything like that.

This is what I did, too, and I had fun making my own album. I also just ordered my own enlargements from online photo stores, rather than going through the photographer.