DBPhotography

I reached out to Derrick after seeing his profile on the Knot. I loved his saturated true-to-life style, and after we booked him, our engagement shoot was great. The photos are some of my favorite ever taken! We were excited to work with him the following year on our wedding day. And I will preface this by saying the photos from the day are beautiful. The gallery is huge and there was a great mix of formal, candid, and posed photos. He is a talented photographer, and he captured the energy of the day very well. However, in the days leading up to the wedding, it was difficult to get information from him. His emails were short, sent from a phone, and I had to prompt him for everything. It felt like pulling teeth trying to communicate with him. He wasn’t familiar with the package I had booked, nor what the contract said. The balance was due a week before, but he told me I was late to pay it 2 weeks out—said he was meaning to reach out to me, but again, any communication with Derrick was initiated by me. I provided a detailed shot list and timeline ahead of the day, and asked him if there was enough time for the photos. He said everything looked great and it would be more than enough time. On the day itself, photos were incredibly behind. I designed the photo schedule so people wouldn’t have to wait around, but everyone had arrived before we even finished the bridal party photos. Despite giving him a shot list, after every grouping, he would ask me “who next.” I was already incredibly stressed and overwhelmed, and his unpreparedness and lack of guidance only added to it. We were still taking photos while guests were arriving. Due to the lack of time, neither my husband nor I got shots with just our moms and just our dads. The gallery was delivered after the contracted time period, but that wasn’t a big deal to me. I was upset though, that I gave him a complete invitation for a flat lay, and he didn’t even open it up, just left it in a stack. The video is very sweet. I didn’t realize when I paid for “full video” that I wasn’t getting video of the full speeches. If I had known that wasn’t part of the full video add-on, I would have just gotten the highlight video, and requested the full speeches for an additional charge. The communication was very poor. I also had a canvas included in my package, but I had to email Derrick for him to even remember. It was October by that point, the event was in June. He did give us two canvases though, perhaps as an apology. Planning a wedding is a large task, with a lot of moving parts. It would have been nice to be able to trust the photographer to be organized. Great photos, but could have done without the extra stress. Edit: I emailed him again, and he added a video with the full speeches. I am very grateful to have them now.