I want to preface this review with that I love my wedding photos. Unfortunately, the end product alone is not enough for me to give a 5 star review. It's LPS's process that I didn't really like and why I am writing this review to inform other brides who may be like me. (we hired them for photography so that's all I'll be speaking about).
When you hire LPS, you're hiring a conglomerate company with many different departments. Every step of the way you're dealing with a different person. There's a total of 5 different people we dealt with at LPS: from inquiry, to booking, making payments, general questions, day-of-timeline planning, the actual wedding day, and receiving our photos! We chose LPS based off their affordable prices, the value of the packages, and the fact that we could chose from several different styles of photographers. However, when you inquire about booking, you're not talking to your potential photographer. You're talking to a sales person who tells you about the company, takes general information about you, and describes their packages. We chose our photographer based off the portfolios the sales person showed to us, and that alone. In retrospect, choosing your photographer on portfolio alone is pretty crazy. I wish we were given the opportunity to speak to the 2-3 photographers whose portfolios we liked, talk to them about how they work and their styles, and then make our final choice. I was given my photographer's email address a couple months after booking when I wanted his opinion on hiring a second shooter. If I had never asked for his email, the first time I would have communicated with my photographer would have been the week before the wedding, which is pretty unnerving when you know how important photos are. On the wedding day, I quickly realized there was a lot more to know about a photographer than their portfolio and more questions I should have asked before choosing ours. I needed more direction, more feedback of my facial expressions, and for them to be way more vocal and perceptive in group photos, which were a hot mess. Even though the photographers had the groupings list, I ended up shouting who was supposed to be in what photo because no one could hear the photographers and there was no leadership about where they should stand or what they should do. For example, if my MOH hadn't recommended we do some funny photos, all the group shots would have been of everyone standing in a line looking straight at the camera. These are all things that would have been helpful in our decision making if we knew more about our photographer prior to booking.
In all, my photos were beautiful and just what I wanted. Other than the family/bridal party photo shoot, my photographer was pleasant and easy to work. While the process of working with LPS is not one I would recommend, all the different employees were kind, helpful, and professional. So to future brides out there, if you are the kind of person that wants to make sure you really "vibe" with your vendor and value that personal experience with a vendor you feel really knows you and your future hubby (after all, your photographer will spending all day with you two) I would recommend looking to a solo studio owner if it's in your budget. If you're more concerned with budget and just want to make sure you get a good, experienced photographer and don't mind the less personal feel, then LPS can certainly be for you! Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me.