Montclair Studio

y he is heading out of business in which we will sue him personally. 6k dollars spent for an unfinished product. Reviews are clear he is robbing and running from clients.

sionalism and service as a photographer and videographer. We worked with Michael who became very difficult to reach - did not answer phone calls, text messages, e-mails.. I wanted to go through the timeline of our wedding, and I could not get ahold of him until Monday before our Saturday wedding. He suggested months prior taking photos at Lambert Castle, never notified me I would need a permit, and I found out the week of my wedding I would need a permit. He was very difficult to work with because of his lack of response. Our wedding photos turned out decent but took months of harassment to finally get. The same happened with our wedding video. Our initial wedding trailer had very obvious issues with the audio. We never received our raw footage. I would never recommend them. The price we paid unfortunately we could have booked a much better and reputable studio. I found out the day of my wedding that the other bride at my venue had booked Red Bank Studio - the photography team openly admitted to me that Red Bank Studio was also their studio.. And I have recently found my wedding photos on Red Bank Studio's websites.. so if they try to reply to this post stating that they are not affiliated with me, then I would like to know why my wedding photos are being advertised on their website then. Michael has basically shut down Montclair Studio (which if you look at their reviews, have pages and pages of negative reviews) and moved on to Red Bank Studio but do not be fooled.

riend who hired them for his wedding. Big mistake! It’s likely Michael will respond to this review defending himself without accepting that he messed up (see other reviews). We just want an apology and all of our wedding content. Michael refuses to accept any fault for his behavior. He does not return emails, texts, or phone calls (his email inbox and voicemail are also full). You will have such a bad aftertaste dealing with Michael post-wedding that you will feel bad when you look at your photos rather than be full of joy. At the wedding, things went relatively well; after the wedding is when things really got out of hand. He made it very difficult to get the wedding photo files, which was required to be able to choose photos for an album; he claimed he mailed them to us in San Francisco where we live, but he deceived us: USPS tracking # he gave us showed that he never actually sent them We called him out on that and they miraculously were sent. When we complained, he blamed USPS and said we should just pick it up in New Jersey...but we live in California! Finally, the USB of the wedding photos arrived to SF. The quality of the wedding photos were mediocre: he did not do a good job with outdoor photos or framing. He also had not sent us our Thursday afternoon Mehndi event photos. When we asked how to get those, he said to pick them up in NJ! My mother drove from Manhattan to Montclair (1+ hr driving one-way). Nobody was at the Studio when she arrived, even though she confirmed the time with him! The video was delivered AFTER the contract deadline; Michael demonstrated no remorse. My mom agreed again to drive to Montclair to pick up the Mehndi photos and the wedding videos, which he said would be ready; she arrived and while there was a USB left taped to the door (which someone could have stolen), the USB did not have any video on it! We eventually received the videos. The highlight video was very short; it almost exclusively showed highlights from our pre-wedding photoshoot and not the wedding. The full length video is missing my wife’s vows as well as the Hora dance (an important highlight of any Jewish wedding). His contract stated we could receive the raw video footage if we sent him a hard drive. So we purchased a hard drive and mailed it to his studio. He was not there to receive it, so the post office mailed it back to my parents, who then mailed it to him one final time (we now had paid twice for shipping). Finally, the hard drive arrived to us in SF. We were so excited and thought this terrible saga was over. When we opened the hard drive, guess what? There was no video footage on it! My parents and my wife reached out to Michael, all to no avail. We waited months to write this because we were hoping to secure all of our wedding content first, in case he would hold it hostage due this poor review. At this point, we have given up. Any time we look at our photos, we get upset because it reminds us of this terrible experience with Montclair/Michael. Michael, if you read this, please give us our wedding raw video footage and an apology. Show some honor and accept responsibility for your mistakes.

ived on-time and immediately starting setting up for the day. They were all so friendly and thorough. The entire bridal party loved working with them because of their energy! It was fun to be around them to take the pictures and videos. We had a beautiful day for weather and for amazing sunset pictures. I couldn't have asked for a better group to help during our special day. I cannot wait to now see all of our pictures and video!!

ce mail is full, emails bounce back. Beware.

ogle review, they posted within ten minutes to simply email them, but they do not answer, and merely did that to make themselves look responsive and caring on google.

ore the wedding ended, and the printer didn’t work so the few guests that did get to use it didn’t receive photos. I contacted them for a refund for the photo booth to be refunded. They said they would issue a refund and never did. I’ve been trying to get a hold of them since May with no response to any of my emails. I called today, the voicemail boxes for both the office and cell are full so I can’t even leave a message. I have not received status of my wedding photos. They basically took my money and ran. I don’t even know that I’ll ever get my pictures since I can’t get a hold of anyone.

ighly recommended them. However this week will be 2 months since we got married and I have no received any pictures yet. Which is okay because June is a peak month but they've been offering me false hope with dates we will receive pictures then not delivering. Not to mention I can't get a hold of them. I'm not sure when but several weeks after the wedding I called and spoke to Michael and he said they were being worked on and hoped to have them ready the next week. - July 15: Sent an email asking for update, no response. - July 24: Sent an email asking for update and got the response they hoped to have them finished the next day Thurs July 25 or by Monday July 28. - July 30: Received a "Let us feature your wedding in our magazine" email which I assume was generic. I found this ironic and responded I would consider it once I got my pictures. No response. - Aug 2: Sent an email asking for update, no response. - Aug 5: My husband called the studio and spoke to an employee named Alex and was told they were finishing them up and they would be ready Thursday Aug 8. - Aug 12: Both my husband and I called all day the studio & Michael's cell.. no answer and mailboxes were full on both lines. - Today Aug 13, still calling and no answer. Full mailboxes. This is just for photos, there has been no discussion of what timeline for video looks like but I'm not optimistic it will be any time soon. Since they are unreachable at this time I'm hoping this method of contact may get some attention and my questions answered as I feel like I'm in the dark right now. Also I'm getting tired of friends and family asking if I got photos yet and when I'm getting them and all I can say is "I don't know" and that they keep giving us dates and not delivering. I am keeping an open mind and I'm optimistic our pictures and video will turn out amazing but as a client, I'm disappointed with the customer service thus far.

ick up their phone, or return voicemails or emails. Do NOT use this photographer unless you want to spend the next year of your life tracking down all of the components of the package you paid for. I've never experienced such poor customer service in my life.

re very organized. We were so impressed with their hard work all night. I would recommend them to anyone who is looking for a photographer and videographer. Amazing job. Can’t wait to see our photos and video. Thank you Montclair studio!! You guys are the best!!

said, everything else in dealing with Michael and team was a frustrating MESS. They are very disorganized, are NOT responsive and once they receive payment from you, don't feel any need to respond in a timely manner or get your pictures and video to you on time. They even sent us someone else's wedding video by accident after not sending ours for over 6 months! No one contacted me before the day of the wedding to set up a schedule with me, and when I called to check in (they sent me a day of wedding note after I called), they told me Michael would be with me and someone else would be with my soon to be husband. On the day of, they showed up an hour late, with a photographer I had never met before because Michael was running late. They told Michael would be with my husband and groomsmen when he got here. We ended up being way behind schedule with pictures that day and we missed our entire cocktail hour, even though we opted for a first look to avoid that. AFTER the wedding, they sent along a document that tells you "You will receive an email with the link for your Webpage gallery within 30 - 40 days of your Wedding date." After a number of unanswered emails, we received the link to our gallery 60 days later-- they're very busy so fine, the pictures were late. However, it took 2 more months to get the USBs with the actual pictures on them. When I plugged the USB's in, they weren't uploaded properly so we emailed about needing new ones repeatedly and didn't hear back for WEEKS. At this point it had now been 5-6 months since the wedding and we still hadn't received the actual images of the wedding so we could create our album, or the highlight video OR full length video. I emailed and called so many times with no response, my husband stepped in. When we FINALLY got our highlight video emailed to us, it took another full month to get any of the changes made that we requested. Michael and team would promise the images and video were being sent to us, and they would never come, so we'd have to reach back out again, sometimes going weeks with no response and then were told, something was wrong with the mail. They require you to pay for your services in full before your wedding day, so we had already paid for everything and had no leverage here, they had our money and our photos and video. Then, when we finally thought everything- Final images and videos were going to be sent to us, we opened the USB drives to find that they were from SOMEONE ELSE'S WEDDING. All in all, after a lot of frustrating back and forth it took almost a full year to get our actual pictures and video. In November, I sent our images over to the company I was using to create our albums and was told they weren't in the correct format/res. I reached out to Michael and team to get them in the correct format/res, and had to follow up repeatedly for MONTHS, until finally in MARCH, the owner of the album company reached out to Michael directly to get what we needed, since I was ready to get my money back and give up the album altogether-- since I was so fed up. This whole process was extremely frustrating and not something you should have to deal with as a newlywed couple.

Central Park and our wedding. He is very professional and efficient. He captures every moment and his work is fantastic. He is also a lot of fun to work with! Our wedding photos are so beautiful and our guests were very impressed with their work

d expect to happen on the wedding day. They even did our engagement and it was so natural and comfortable. Our photos looked really good. Like REALLY good.

st everything, I cried my makeup off) went so well on my wedding day and I definitely have to thanks Michael for his hand in making my wedding day special.

use they mingled into the dancing so well and weren't disruptive to the celebration. They were extremely accommodating with family pictures, especially since we have difficult & large extended families. They are so relaxed and make you feel relaxed on a very stressful day, which was super helpful for us. And their pictures come out GORGEOUS!

confirmations was received yesterday asking me for 12 hours notice should I need to reschedule or cancel for any reason. Apparently they should set internal reminders to also offer that courtesy and same level of respect to their potential clients. I showed up 10 minutes early only to find a closed and locked studio. I thought this was a little odd but figured I would just wait it out. Once it was closer to my 5pm appointment time I decided to call their main line (I received no answer but let a voicemail in case). I stood outside the studio even longer and then opted to call the manager’s cell phone number from my previous communications with him just to see if for any unforeseen reason someone was running late. Again no answer but left another hopeful voicemail that someone would get back to me with an update soon. After waiting another 20 minutes in their parking lot with no hope in sight I called it quits. If they can’t keep their internal appointment schedule straight for when someone is meant to take a meeting AT THEIR OWN STUDIO ... how would anyone trust that they’d show up to their wedding ceremony or reception on time? The lack of communication was alarming and blatant disregard for anyeone else’s time was made crystal clear. Definitely will not be circling back to them for business. Such a shame was hoping to book local

we got engaged Montclair was our first vendor to be booked! They did not dissapoint!!! They answered calls and emailed ASAP and worked within our budget. we got our engagement photos back within 2 weeks and our wedding photos in a month!! (this is unheard of). The morning of was perfect. They made me feel so calm in such a busy time. They made my husband and I laugh during our portrait sessions and we have so many genuine pictures! We cannot say enough !! Thank you Montclair for the memories that will last forever.

I left a message and no one called back. When we arrived we met with a photographer and discussed packages, we didnt need everything that was included in the pricing and asked if we could negotiate, he gave us a price and told us that we would have to email his boss Michael to get a confirmation of what we talked about. He wouldn't message Michael himself which I thought was kind of odd but we emailed him anyway. A few days later Michael emailed us back agreeing to what we discussed and said he would draw up a contract. A month later and we still haven't received any more emails, I emailed Micahel and called the studio,no response, it has now been over a month with no reply. This is completely unprofessional and they have a total disregard for peoples time and money, we never even recieved a phone call or message explaining what happened from either the photographer or Michael. I wouldn't trust them to take pictures for our wedding, and I would never go back to them. Think twice before you book with Montclair Studio

ved our pictures very quickly—about 6 weeks after our wedding. They were just beautiful!! Montclair Studio is the absolute best choice you could make when booking a photographer! Thank you so much Michael!

oo into photos but every single minute that Michael spent before and during the wedding gave us some amazing photos.