If you’ve booked/plan to book with Epic, hopefully you’ve budgeted several thousand dollars EXTRA to re-stage your wedding photos so you can actually get the “must-have” shots you ...requested.
Booking Epic was, single handedly, the worst decision we made during wedding planning, and the effects of that decision will be felt for years to come. The preparation we did and reiterating what was important to us before the wedding didn’t matter.
Leading up to the wedding, we were proud of our decision to work with Epic. The owner, Eric, even helped us create the day of schedule and gave advice based on previous weddings.
The people who will actually be at your wedding are only introduced the week of the event, despite not being involved in a single phone call or planning form beforehand. There’s already enough going on right before any wedding, so it was incredibly stressful trying to coordinate a FaceTime call a few days before the wedding just to “meet” the photo and video team, who knew almost nothing about us. Until then, we had no idea the Eric would not be the one shooting our wedding alongside a second shooter or assistant.
Our videographer was not bad at all, but our photographer, Lindsay, is another story. She was awkward/rude to our family, took some pretty poor photos, and had to be repeatedly reminded to take pictures of our family, which was quite literally one of our only two requests (photos of the bride and groom, photos of immediate family). We ended up with one terrible family photo with wind-blown hair/unadjusted jackets. Having multiple photo options to choose from would have prevented that.
When we asked why we didn’t receive getting ready photos of the bride/mom or groom/mom, formal couple portraits after the ceremony, and other scheduled shots, we were told Lindsay left notes saying it was “literally a monsoon outside.” That was shocking to us, considering Epic was actively taking photos of us with guests during the worst part of the storm. The weather had essentially totally cleared after dinner, which was specifically when we had scheduled our formal couple portraits. Multiple accounts/vendors can confirm that. We also told them during the wedding that if we couldn’t do regular outdoor photos (due to rain) that we would like to take them on the large covered patio during the scheduled sunset photos since we only had first look photos together at this point. This was ignored.
We also received feedback from friends, family, vendors, and even venue staff about how inappropriate it was for Epic to be out on the dance floor DANCING during the reception. We would not have cared if we had received the photos we asked for, but Epic disregarded our schedule/plans without communicating with us.
Our concerns regarding the photos were met with responses like, “Well, the photos you do have look pretty good”. There was discussion about following up after making adjustments to our photo delivery, but that follow up never happened. There has been no resolution and no apology.
Book a photographer who personally handles your planning process and actually cares about your wedding day. And if you can’t get out of using Epic, we sincerely hope you don’t get Lindsay as your photographer.
Do your due diligence, document everything in writing, but based on our experience, even that may not help. Good luck!