Katherine Joy Photography and Video

ing Katherine Joy Photography was the only decision about our wedding we regret. We used her for a small elopement style wedding in Acadia National Park in October 2024. All in all, we paid more than $5,700 to have Katherine photograph our wedding, and I felt the value was closer to $500. I’d strongly suggest hiring someone else. 

 Here are the main reasons of why she was horrible to work with:

1. Horrible, almost non-existent communication: After booking in Feb, I didn’t hear from her again other than automated billing emails saying she’d withdrawn the second part of our payment. This was despite of the fact that she had said in writing she would reach out ten weeks prior to establish a timeline of events and gather information on our “photo wish list”. Two weeks prior to my wedding, I reached out to her. Day of the wedding, she TEXTED me two hours before she was supposed to arrive asking where to meet me. My friends and family brought extra cameras because we were convinced she wasn’t going to show up. 

 2. Poor planning: I had to send her a list of photographs I wanted unprompted, which she never review them with us or had the list printed out. Her lack of planning caused us to miss out on specific photographs we wanted and also made my husband and I have to organize our photographs during the day. Additionally, she was just generally aloof the whole day. 3. Unprofessional photographer- We had 15 total people at the wedding and 7 of them asked me if she was on some type of drug. That’s how unprofessional she was during the day. She claims to have a “way to make brides and groom more comfortable”, but in our experience, she barely spoke. During the ceremony, she took plenty of pictures, but from varying angles. But afterwards, when we had a list of specific pictures she wanted, she went completely silent. My husband and I had to direct people to get into the groupings we wanted. Even after everyone left and it was just us wanting to do editorials or whatever, she gave us such little direction. Once we arrived at our restaurant for our reception, she sat in the middle of the table, blocking off some of our guests from meeting with the other guests (we had said she could have food). She also ordered drinks. 4. I missed out on photographs I wanted- I had a list of 30 photos that I desperately wanted. She missed 10 of the photos that we had requested. My friends and I had to have a photoshoot after she left to capture them on our phones. Beyond the ones on the list, there were also some that I didn’t think I’d have to explain to get, like individual bridal/groom shots (there are 3 pictures of me without someone else in them and none of my husband alone). 5.The style she claims to have was nowhere to be seen- All of what you see on her instagram is not at all reflected in my wedding album. There is maybe one or two photographs out of our 500 photograph album that looks even somewhat whimsical. The rest anyone with a camera could have taken. 6. I felt scammed: She booked the hotel room so late that her room cost was more than $1,500. She also booked the room for three nights, despite only seeing us for a total of five hours. Further, her contract explicitly states that she has to provide 100 edited photos per hour she was with us by 90 days from the date of the event. On day 89 after our wedding, she sent us photos, which technically had close to the right amount, but edited is a generous word- most of them had minor light editing but still had others in the background, people with eyes shut out, etc. I've included a snip of our album so you can see how many photos were duplicates.

vely and delivered super fast! We love working with Kat and would definitely recommend her!!

ce based on experience and overall look of photos, or so I thought. We went through a long process of planning as I'm sure like most couples planning a wedding did during covid, we ended up having to postpone the wedding from Oct 2020 to May 2021. In addition to this, we also had to postpone our engagement session as we live out of state and thought it would make more sense to plan it in one trip. So we planned it that we’d have our wedding then engagement session a few days after. That process of changing the date in all was fairly easy with Kat and her associate Emiley, who was the one actually shooting for us. While in the process of finding a new date and trying to plan locations for both days, it became more and more difficult to communicate with Kat as response times became longer and longer. Soon I was finding myself planning the entire engagement and wedding timeline from start to finish, with little guidance from her. Since we live in another state than where we were getting married and where Kat is located, we did not get to meet in person before hand so we set up a zoom call to iron out the final details. I understand we are all busy, but having to reschedule a zoom call 3-4 different times because she was 'too busy' or had 'personal matters' was very frustrating. Once the three of us, myself, Kat and Emiley got on said zoom call, it seemed as though neither of them knew anything or had any notes from our long email thread of planning that took place over the last couple months. Note: She did not brief Emiley at all beforehand of our prior conversations, so I do not blame Emiley for not knowing any details. The entire call was me going over all the details, locations, times, etc. For the rest of the call Emiley and I worked together to piece it all together on the phone as the day was quickly approaching. And while we were discussing it seemed as though Kat was distracted, barely talking or even listening. This call threw me in a tail spin. I was beyond frustrated we had to reschedule multiple times, but then to get on a call and have her not remember anything was mind blowing. Come wedding day, Emiley was amazing and I couldn't say enough great things about her. I would work with her again in a heartbeat. A few weeks later I receive the wedding photos. I loved the photos, they brought back special moments of our day but I felt like the editing was a bit off. I’m not sure why our skin tone looked so PINK, we aren’t pink maybe just a little pale. I didn’t feel like she put the effort and details into editing our photos. Once we received our engagement photos, my mind didn’t change. Again, I felt like she didn’t put the care into editing them. During our shoot, we had Emiley take a few specific photos with a flag we purchased that had our last name on it. We didn’t receive the best photos I thought with the flag as we took so many, so when I reached out to Kat she essentially gave me the run around and eventually said she didn’t have any better ones but I know we did. That made me feel cheated and disappointed, like she didn’t care to put in the little extra time for us. Overall, with how much planning and energy I had to put into this job that I paid someone else to handle, I wouldn’t recommend Kat. However, Emiley was incredible.

day through her work. I cried so much. She has a gift of capturing the subtle beautiful moments. Also, the energy that surrounds her is so infectious. It helps us feel comfortable and open on the other side of the lens. Our only regret is not having a photo WITH her. We are so happy with all the photos and feel so blessed to have found Kat. A few newly engaged couples have reached out to me about her and I am singing her praises as loud as I can! Hire her. You'll laugh, you'll dance, you'll love her style and maybe even end up being friends.