Jim Byrd Photography

While the final project of Jim's photos are great, the process to get there is painful. The wedding day started out with him yelling at three different members of the bridal party, including the young ring bearer, for unnecessary reasons. He also snapped at me, the coordinator, because I wanted to check on my bride. Pictures started late and we were grossly behind schedule. He blew me off repeatedly when I came to check on the pre-ceremony photos. If he had not spent so much time unnaturally over-posing each and every individual shot this could have been avoided. Instead, he just made excuses for being behind schedule. After the ceremony, during family pictures he vocally complained and made excuses in front of the entire extended family about things not going the way he wanted them to. Every single extended family picture was a glamour shots portrait to him - asking aunts and uncles to sit on the floor and perfectly position their arms just so. At the reception, which started an hour late due to an extended photography session, he micromanaged every single event that happened - nevermind what the bride and groom actually wanted. Every single photo was painfully staged, the bride and groom were never allowed to just be natural. When it was announced that the cake cutting was about to happen, he walked the complete opposite direction to shoot something else he found more interesting. When it was time for the garter toss, he snatched the bride's chair away from me and then required that married men come out to the floor - all for the sake of a fake, staged picture. Who wants married men to catch the garter? At the end of the night all the bride and groom wanted to do was LEAVE but Jim insisted on several more shots as they were trying to get to the door. Even when the groom said that the sparklers would only last for so long and they were going to miss them, Jim forced the couple to pose for another unnatural shot - just barely making it through the sparkler exit in time. If you enjoy natural, real life photography, Jim is not your guy. But if you prefer outdated, unnaturally posed pictures with a high strung attitude, go right ahead.

We could not have been more pleased with choosing Jim as our photographer. He and Cyd are a great team. He took the engagement, bridal and wedding pictures for us of which we got so many compliments. His professionalism and dedication are unmatched, and Cyd was very responsive and accommodating when we had questions. I would not hesitate to recommend Jim Byrd.

From the start, we loved Jim's photos. Everything he took was awesome and he was great to work with. he knows the shots he wants to take and gets them done. He is creative, worked with us with everything and his wife was awesome in her editing and her products. The small complaint we had was he was a bit pushy sometimes, but he was very upfront about this and told us from the start, we were ok with it but some guests at the reception were offended. Regardless, he got the shots we wanted, worked with us, and was a great photographer!

Jim was very easy to work with; he and his wife Cyd make a great team. I'll be the first to admit my daughter and I are demanding clients, and they worked with us in every way possible to get what we envisioned. My only caution is not to assume anything - for example my son and his wife had received all of their engagement pics with print right as part of their package. This is not common and we should've asked more questions since we are both the type that want every picture! Still their package prices on engagement and bridal portraits allowed us to purchase probably more than we needed. Jim is a very hard worker; he earns every penny. Our wedding pictures were fabulous and I believe he got every shot we could've wanted. He seemed to be well known in the industry and worked well with our other vendors. If you are looking for great value, quality, unique shots and dependability, you can't go wrong with Jim Byrd.