$2,000 starting price
About this vendor
Based in Chicago, IL, Philip Gregory Photography documents weddings throughout the Chicago-land area. Owner Phil Serratore understands how overwhelming it can be to plan a wedding and strives make the process as easy and stress-free as possible. He and his team will capture the timeless, organic, and romantic moments that make up your special day and preserve the energetic legacy of your love story.
A native of Chicago's Southside, Phil graduated from Saint Xavier University in 2009 and opened his own business in 2016. The five-plus years that he has been capturing weddings have been some of the best of his life. Throughout Phil's life, photography has been a gift that has brought him healing and empowerment. It has also been a way to connect with clients, and he can't wait to connect with you and hear about your amazing wedding.
Working with Philip Gregory Photography begins with a consultation, during which Phil and his team will learn about your needs and desires. These photographers and cinematographers are committed to ensuring that the images and videos they create are unique, authentic, and personal. They provide boudoir shoots, engagement sessions, and all-day coverage, and can customize your package to your preferences.
Details
Business Attributes
- Asian-owned Business
- Black-owned Business
- Hispanic or Latinx-owned Business
- LGBTQ+-owned Business
- Native American-owned Business
- Pacific Islander-owned Business
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
Photo Shoot Types
- Boudoir
- Bridal Portraits
- Day After Session
- Engagement
- Trash The Dress
Photo & Video
- Digital Files
- Drone
- Online Proofing
- Photo
- Printed Proofs
- Second Shooter Available
Photo & Video Styles
- Classic
- Documentary
- Lifestyle
- Modern
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Rehearsals & Parties
- After Party
- Wedding
- After Party
Reviews
Your trust is our goal. Our community relies on honest reviews to help you make those big decisions with ease.
3.4
out of 5.035 reviews
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As I write this, I am deeply upset over the permanent loss of priceless wedding footage. Brides, take caution.
The day of my wedding went smoothly, and Chris, my main photographer, was friendly and professional. Tom handled the videography and was equally excellent. Phil, however, did not work my wedding directly. We had opted for a short, movie-like trailer, which I loved. If my experience had ended there, I would wholeheartedly recommend them.
In fact, if Chris and Tom ever work independently or for another company, I would hire them again without hesitation.
After the wedding, I requested footage of my father-daughter dance and the speeches. Phil offered 45 minutes of raw, unedited footage for $700, which I felt was unreasonable, so I declined. After negotiating, we agreed on $400. Phil then sent me a Google Drive link to access the footage, which I watched once. When I attempted to view it again a year and a half later, the link no longer worked. I reached out to Phil, who informed me that the footage had been deleted from the cloud. He claimed that he advises all clients to download their footage immediately. However, I was never told that downloading the footage was necessary to retain it permanently, and I would have done so had I known.
Fortunately, I have saved all our email and text communications, which clearly show that at no point was I informed the footage would only be available for a limited time, nor was I advised to download it. Who would pay $400 for raw footage only to have it available for just one year?
After I provided Phil with proof of our communication, he refused to offer any refund or attempt to resolve the situation.
As a result, I have now lost $400 and, more heartbreakingly, irreplaceable footage of my father-daughter dance. This loss is through no fault of my own. If Phil had told me that the link was temporary, or had checked with me before deleting the footage, this would be a different situation. However, I can definitively prove that I was never informed.
To future brides: either look elsewhere or get everything in writing, save all communications, and download your footage as soon as you receive it. Phil may neglect to remind you, but I won’t. Sadly, the only regret I have about my wedding day is hiring him. I can't understand how, after explaining all this to him, I still didn’t receive so much as an apology.
Phil was great! Our pics look wonderful!
We’ve been extremely patient with Phil. In the beginning he was great. Super friendly and personable. He’s expensive but we thought he was great and wanted to give him our business. He did tell us that he wouldn’t be the one photographing our wedding but he’d be the one editing. Chris was our photographer and he was great! We absolutely loved Chris. We’d definitely hire him again. Unfortunately we can’t say the same about Phil. We gave Phil the time it states in his contract (3-4 months) to edit and send us our photos. After the timeframe we started calling and messaging him and we were usually ghosted. And then my lovely mother in law offered to get involved. Phil would actually answer her messages and calls but not ours. Mind you, my husband and I were very nice to him. Never disrespected him or even showed our frustrations. He gave my mother in law some story about his personal life. And he needed some time “away.” Do we believe it? I don’t know. But I do believe that as a business owner, you should let your customers know you’ve got some personal things going on and won’t be able to deliver during the agreed timeframe. Instead of just ghosting them. Anyway, he kept telling my mother in law that the pics would soon be up. We finally got our pictures 6 MONTHS LATER. Annoying, but I was just happy the pictures were up. Then I saw the actually pictures. I’m convinced he “edited” them and uploaded them the night before. Honestly, nothing special. The pictures Chris took were great, but the editing was ok. We have many doubles and even triples, the editing looks like an amateur did it, some pictures are the same, just cropped. But I wouldn’t even care too much about that but he did not include any pictures that Chris took of us with our families (parents, siblings) after the ceremony. I will say, the videos are nice. I’ll give props where they are due; Phil did a nice job editing the videos. But, I messaged him about the missing pictures but no response. And again my mother in law got involved and of course he responded! He said he’d get together with Chris to look for the missing pictures. He told my MIL that he’ll have the pictures up in a month. Annoying but fine whatever. A month passes and surprise surprise, the pictures still aren’t there. It’s almost been a year since our wedding and we’re still dealing with this. We are considering legal advice like some other reviews mentioned, because like I said, he was not cheap and we’ve been patient long enough. Unfortunately, the reviews from unhappy customers didn’t start coming in until after our wedding. Had we seen them before, we 100% wouldn’t have hired him. We waited this long to write a review because we were giving him a chance (or many chances) to make it right.
I wish I could write something positive but I want people to beware. Phil and I had a normal introductory phone call (a year before wedding?). He seemed pleasant and like he knew what he was talking about. After that, I was unable to get a hold of him until one/two weeks before the wedding and even had my wedding planner reach out. I noticed a lot of negative reviews and started to panic. He finally responded and had some excuse but we figured out a few days before the wedding a plan of action for photos. He arrived and immediately was confrontational with my make up artist as he was finishing up my make up. It created a negative atmosphere for me and the others just as I was getting ready to put my dress on. He didn’t take any photos of the groom getting ready which I’m still disappointed about. The photos before the wedding went ok. The way he spoke to us was aggressive and he explained that that was because he is a high school football coach. He got in an argument with my trolley driver after the driver told him he could lose his license if we brought alcohol off of the trolley. It was totally uncalled for and I could see a pattern in his combative behavior. While shooting my family photos at the church, he made sarcastic and insulting jokes to several people.
Unfortunately, that was not the worst of it. He told me it would take at most three months until I receive my photos. I did not hear from him or receive any “sneak peek” photos until I contacted him+2 months after the wedding. I saw that he was posting photos of a wedding that had occurred one month after mine. I emailed to ask him how it was going and he didn’t respond. I called him and he said he “dropped the ball” and would have sneak peak photos to me in 24 hours. He didn’t get the photos to me in 24 hours so I called and as typical for him, he was argumentative. He sent the sneak peaks and said I would get the rest of the photos in two weeks. Two weeks passed and I contacted him several times with no response. As recommended to me by his former clients, they suggested I get a lawyer involved. So we got a lawyer and he finally responded a month later with another excuse and said it would be another two months until we received our photos (6 months total). Our lawyer had reached out several times to make sure the photos were being worked on but Phil never answered. It just so happened that our lawyer ran into Phil at a wedding (both as guests) and confronted him about the photos. Phil had several more excuses but we ended up receiving the photos three days after their encounter. So all in all, it took 4+ months to get photos. I’m sure we would not have them if it weren’t for our lawyer. The quality of his photos is ok. Some are good and some are bad. Attached is an example of the type of photos I can’t believe he gave me. In my opinion, he rushed through it. I’m just thankful that there are good photos in the bunch.
Hiring Phil was my only mistake I made when planning my wedding. I don’t think Phil should be a wedding photographer and certainly not have his own company. He doesn’t have the personality to deal with other people or the organization skills. I don’t recommend hiring Phil for any event unless you’d like your photographer to argue and insult your vendors/guests and then deny your calls and not respond to your emails. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see my wedding photos. It turns out he and I are from the same neighborhood and I spoke to many people that confirmed with me that this type of behavior is normal for him.
Awful photographer at every angle. BEWARE, He is persuasive verbally however will not do what he says.
1) Disrespectful to guests & vendors 2) Has no ability to be his own boss and run a business. Does not stick to his word. Constantly lies and plays with you regarding when you are getting photos, excuse after excuse that goes on for months. 3) We had a lawyer lined up regarding the timeline because he does not GIVE YOU your photos. Will literally play with you like treat and a dog, for MONTHS on MONTHS 4) He is a complete CREEP with your single friends. He has a wife and a child. Is sober at weddings. But he looks for your SINGLE Friends and end goal is to get them in a hotel alone, they're drinking and he isn't. What does this sound like to you reading??!! 5) Our two small children were in our wedding and he failed to take any picture of us all together (OUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY) plus they were ring bearers!! 6) His photos are CROOKED, FAR AWAY, BLURRY, you name it. Have fun finding one you can use! One photo your face will be blurry with important xyz person, the next photo the other persons face is blurry. 7) He does not do any work after he takes pictures. He goes home and sits down waiting on this next deal. Your photos sit there however he won't send them. Nothing is edited. He says editing takes 2 hours a photos, it takes 2 minutes! He does not touch them. He does not even WEED them out because he does not do WORK. He does not delete the photos of the ground, out of focus, any bloopers. He gave us 900 photos, we paid for 700. After deleting his bloopers and photos we could not use, we had 300 pictures saved. WE PAID FOR 700! and mind you, 10 pictures are "good" for his standards, the rest I guess you have as your memory but are so bad that you cannot even put them in a book. 8) HE is just one big huge walking red flag and I really hope he finds her place in the world. I do not want anyone else having their wedding photos mess up becasue this is THE MOST IMPORTANT VENDOR YOU WILL HAVE TO HIRE. I would rather have had a shitty CAKE vs PHOTOGRAPER. Find a new job please and turn your life around. ONE DONT HIRE HIM BC HE WILL CREEP ON YOUR SINGLE DRUNK YOUNG FEMALE FREINDS and TRY TO GET TO THEIR HOTEL ROOM making sure they are DRUNK, TWO PHOTOS ARE AWFUL RUN
Don't learn the hard way. If you already paid him for a future wedding, eat the cost and find someone else to capture your day. Totally not worth him wasting all your wedding dollars by not properly documenting it.
RUN!!!! He took our money and ghosted us. I have the proof. This guy was sheer chaos. His business model is to have his high school friends write positive reviews and the pics of people he uses are family friends etc. Google the brides and groom. See the link?
This guy is bad news. No problem taking your money and then he will never respond to email, calls, texts , etc.
Awful experience like some are recently posting. Very disheartening - and he has no conscience of how he hurts people, with everything he "does not do". This is most likely your only wedding day. When we showed our family photographer his photos she said "you at least have a few you can frame. the world's most expensive mediocre photos".
Takes, unflattering angles of faces, sends many photos other photographers would throw away. Does not take away make up skin texture at all, which I am told is a simple photoshop fix. If he costed $700 it would make sense. Please don't cause yourself the pain. Look for another photographer.
Aside from this dealing with him is atrocious. Just do not hire this man. Takes the money and f*cks with you.
Phil was every bit of professional while working with our daily delivering the best of the best photos
1. Be aware that the football players Phil coached at Brother rice wrote 5 star reviews to boost his rating
2. He does not take the photos that you ask him to take. We sent him a detailed shot list before the wedding and unfortunately many of these photos were not taken.
3. HORRIBLE communication. He did not reply to several of our emails for over a month.
4. The photos are mediocre. Recommend having a backup plan for someone to edit some of the photos.
5. Incredibly unorganized and scattered. The call we had with him (that we needed to initiate) 2 weeks prior to the wedding was incredibly chaotic and he made us change around our wedding timeline for the first half of the wedding day.
Horrible, listen to the one star reviews maybe this guy used to be good but he won’t get you the photos in a timely manner and the photos he does give are terrible! Do not hire if you want to remember your day
He highlighted a 5 star review to distract you from all the negative ones coming in lately .. check google trust me. Should not be a wedding photographer, does not even give you quality photos or video. Extremely rude to guests. Worst photographer on the knot.
Guy sucks! Refuses to give raw photos and videos back to our friend, really weird and treats guests horrible - swore at all of us during her wedding. The photos he gave her suck and cut out a ton of people. Low quality photos and human
SCAM ALERT DO NOT HIRE NOT ACTUAL PROFESSIONAL
1. All of the 5 star reviews are Phil or his friends trying to get rid of the negative ones, but trust me when you should stay far the heck away from this guy
2. Photos are not professionally edited, he doesn’t take any photos you request of him, all photos we received are blurry/grainy, he cuts out a ton of people, blemishes are not edited, nothing is crisp or clean, horrible.
3. He will assault your guests. We’re debating bringing charges forward. He inappropriately pursued several of our female guests instead of taking photos during the reception. By the way, if you’re his wife reading this I’m so sorry you just had a baby with this man, you deserve so much better in life than a guy who cheats on you at weddings he’s supposed to be working :( he even tried to come back out the night of my wedding to meet up with a female guest it’s disgusting. I am so sorry if you’re reading these reviews as it seems he’s doing it at every wedding :(
4. He’s argumentative, yells and swears both to guests and to you when you try and request your photos. Horrible person.
Worst experience I’ve ever see or been apart of with a wedding photographer. He’s cussed at my wife, friends and family during and post wedding. The photos he sent us are not professional at all, our friends took better photos on their phones than he did. Extremely inappropriate with the women in attendance at our wedding, we found this out after the fact otherwise I would’ve had him removed immediately. He’s a scammer.
Be very careful about hiring this photographer. We hired him for our wedding at the beginning of the year. We thought per his prices and website image he was top notch. We searched reviews and they were too good to be true. Of course he was the right choice. Well here is the hard part.
While we ran into problems with not receiving our photos. We did searches again. His google reviews came up. The things people were complaining about were all aligned with each other. Then we were scared. Because what is such an important occasion, the literal last mistake you would want to make is hiring the wrong person to take pictures (or not to take pictures).
All the sudden the Google Reviews vanished after a few days - so he pays to scrub. You can still see them time to time, but then I assume he pays to remove them again.
Here are comments we read that aligned with our problems with him as well (Most of which I can confirm happened to us):
-Overpromises and underdelivers
-Flirts with your single friends
-People having to get a lawyer involved in order to see their pictures
-One year + after the wedding and still no photos
-All good reviews being "friends"
-Will not follow agenda form that he has you fill out. So the important pictures you wanted to take, don't happen
-Fights with Vendors (Yes this is true)
-Very convincing verbally but will not deliver what he says, then will act like you are the problem
All I can say is, be careful. Your wedding is too important to risk uncertainty of your photos. This person is not who he seems.
Phil was hands down the most perfect photographer for our big day! We knew from our first interview with him that he would be a great person to have around on the wedding day as he was friendly, easy to get along with, and clearly had a creative mind with a great eye! We had the easiest photo shoot with him for our engagement shoot where it wasn't awkward at all (which was our fear cause never in front of the camera) and the time flew by! We LOVE the photos he captured and CAN'T WAIT to get the photos from our wedding day. We will for sure hire him again in the future for any big events or anything we can cause he is amazing to work with and such a kind, bright guy!
UNORGANIZED: Booked him in Aug for a July wedding (almost a year out) & didn’t hear from him until 2 weeks before. I had to reach out to him to get the planning going. Phil asked us to create a photo list of our “must-capture” photos & poses. He ignored our list.
CONFRONTATIONAL: Wedding day Phil SCREAMED at everyone. Phil not only screamed at my bridal party, but also my mother in-law, florist & a wedding guest. My mother-in-law asked for a pic of her pinning a boutonniere on the groom & he screamed at her saying there wasn’t time. He took the photo after his outburst. At my reception, my florist & one of my guests went to dim the lights & he angrily screamed at both of them yelling “DON’T FREAKING DIM THE LIGHTS, I JUST SET MY METERS”.
LACKS CUSTOMER SERVICE: 8 weeks after our wedding, we asked when to expect our completed album. No delivery date was listed in our contract. He told us albums take 3 months & expect it by end of Oct. Album was not ready until Thanksgiving. Phil NEVER asked if we received our album or if we liked it.
FAILS TO PHOTOGRAPH REQUESTED INDIVIDUALS & MOMENTS: Phil failed to take any single shots of the bride, NO mother of the bride & bride picture (which was a MUST), didn’t capture all reception bridal party entrances, invitation suite & detail shots are not staged, photographed unflattering angles & gave us images with people’s eyes closed. He ignored our photo list & didn’t edit the pictures to align with his portfolio.
RAW IMAGES: He tried to tell us that it’s not in the contract to give the customer the raw images so we highlighted the paragraph where PHIL wrote that the customer has rights. Phil told us if we drove to his home we could have our raw images.
UNACCOMMODATING: We emailed Phil explaining that we were unhappy with the photos he captured & asked for a refund. We asked for a response within the week. No response. My husband called him & Phil rudely told him that he upheld everything in the contract & he wasn’t refunding us. Then hung up on my husband. He never tried to remediate the situation or problem solve with us. JUST TOOK OUR MONEY & RAN.
INAPPROPRIATELY BUILDS CLIENTELE: 32 days later Phil emailed us pleading that he believes he upheld his contract. Shortly after our wedding, we learned that Phil had been fraternizing with our guests instead of doing what we paid him to do. He went as far as to seek a female guest out for development of his professional portfolio. Night of my wedding, he friended her on Facebook & said that he enjoyed talking to her & asked if she would model in a session for him. We explained our frustration to him & said that it was apparent he focused on building relationships for his own professional portfolio during our contracted time rather than capturing our photos we paid & asked him to take.
His emailed response to us: “Yes, Phillip Gregory Photography is always looking for new business and potential clientele.”
My advice - protect yourself in your contract with identifying the following items: Expected delivery date of your album, Expected number of edited photos, Explanation how the photos will be edited, Rights to the raw, unedited images from your session/wedding day, Customer photo list indicating the “must-capture” photos/poses
Avoid a cash tip until your completed album is received. I should also note a few unprofessional text responses I did receive from him came at 1:30am & 4:30am. Also his 2nd photographer (we paid for) was hardly working.
I can not say enough amazing things about Phil. Photography was the most important vendor to me and I honestly called about 30 different photographers before finding Phil. His work is absolutely incredible and he is so easy to work with. He is very responsive with any needs or requests you have for photography. He listens, and gives great direction for big groups. You can tell he is very invested in getting you great photos, because he gets so excited while he is shooting. He is organized, professional, and has a great personality which is an added bonus on your big day. Do not waste any more time looking for another photographer because this dude is IT.
Phil is INCREDIBLE, FLEXIBLE, and CREATIVE!!! He goes above and beyond and he really cares about his clients. On our wedding day, we wanted to go outside for photos, but it was considered a liability with ice and snow, so he basically took charge and asked for a shovel. He knew I wanted those winter photos and he made it happen!!! It was the coldest Valentine's Day in the history of Chicago, and he went out to shovel, just so we could have the perfect pictures and didn't take no as an answer when the location was worried about it. Phil is fantastic to work with and made the experience super fun. Over the past 1.5 years with COVID, we have had to change plans multiple times. Every time I called him, I was so worried to tell him about the changes (not wanting to let him down) because he has already been so flexible and done so much in the past. He is constantly ready to roll with the punches and make our dreams come true.
Phil was absolutely incredible! His eye for detail and ability to see things in a way no one else would is amazing. He made our wedding day that much more fun and special. Every photo turned out magazine worthy. All our guests talked about how great he was and I highly recommend him for your photography needs. I never thought I'd be the person that had my engagement and wedding photos all over my house- but the photos are so beautiful that I definitely became that person. Thank you Phil!!!
We loved our photos from Phil! He's professional and personable and had a bunch of ideas for poses! He is definitely talented at what he does. We will be using him in the future for family photos as well.
We had a great experience working with Phil! We felt really comfortable with him, it was like having a friend there. The whole wedding party loved having him there as well, and he made all the pictures really fun. We had to change our date and cut our guest list, Phil was super helpful with advice and really flexible. The pictures are also amazing, he truly captured the feeling of the day. We got so many great shots of various locations downtown we never would have thought of. For our engagement pictures he also picked some beautiful spots in Lincoln Park. We will cherish the pictures forever. I can’t say enough great things about him and his work!
I would give Phil 10 stars if I could!! To say he is amazing would truly be an understatement. We had a city engagement session with him and every single picture came out STUNNING! Everyone was raving about our pictures! I felt he really captured the love between us in the photos. And we truly had so much fun shooting! He's so personable and easy to work with and his passion for photography really shines through in his work. We couldn't be happier with how our engagement photos came out and are so excited for him to capture more special moments on our big day! So happy we found him to be our photographer, can't imagine having anyone else! I can't say enough great things!
Phil is amazing and I cannot explain how happy we were hiring him! I absolutely LOVED our photos and loved working with Phil himself who was super awesome!
My husband and I were so happy that we chose Phil to capture our wedding day! He listened to exactly what we wanted captured that day and he did it with style! We have gotten so many complements of how our photos turned out! He customizes his photos exactly to your personality! We are completely satisfied and will be using him in the future and recommending him to all of our friends and family! Thank you Phil! You are simply the best!!
From beginning to end, Phil was extremely well prepared and professional. His creativity was outstanding and he was always open to our ideas and suggestions. He was very easy to work with as well. Planning a wedding was a lot of work and extremely stressful but Phil made us feel at ease that everything was taken care of. He also made it fun! We had a lot of laughs both during our engagement photos as well as the day of our wedding with our bridal party. If you want a professional, creative, thoughtful, and fun photographer, this is the company to choose!
I’m the host/wedding officiant, Phil is friendly, professional and definitely has an eye for detail, I highly recommend him he has captured precious moments while photographing my nieces’ wedding and that will last a life time. BIG THANK YOU! We appreciate your work Phil.
Phil was an AMAZING photographer to work with! In addition to being super accommodating with all of the COVID changes, he made our day amazing! We felt super relaxed the entire time, and other than posed pictures, truly never even realized he was there capturing the amazing shots that he did! It was such a highlight for us to get our wedding photos and were in awe of how amazing they were! Thank you SO much, we absolutely love your work!
I absolutely love Phillip Gregory. He is really sweet and professional.
Phil is just great!! He really listens to what we wanted. His photos are incredibly beautiful!!
Phil was PHENOMENAL. Best decision ever.
He was personable, friendly, laid back and directed us beautifully. Literally felt natural working with him from start to finish. Our engagement photos are UNBELIEVABLE and I’m SO excited to see how my wedding photos turn out. BOOK. HIM. You will not regret it.
Carrie W
Words can explain how beautifully Phil & his team captured the natural moments of our wedding day. We had so many things go wrong while planning our wedding during the Covid-19 pandemic but Phil was the so helpful & flexible with all the changes we had.
Amazing photographer!!! Tim & I highly recommend Phillio Gregory Photography
Phil was a fantastic photographer that I couldn’t recommend more. He was very professional, very friendly and a ton of fun to be around. Would definitely recommend him for your wedding!
The quality of work is amazing! Phil makes sure the picture he takes is the best. I highly recommend him for engagement, wedding, baby whatever you may need pictures for. Wonderful person!
I cannot say enough about Phil and how great he has been as we planned, postponed, and continue to "wait out" Covid. Our engagement session was EVERYTHING we could have imagined and it was actually super fun to do! He is beyond talented, creative, and open to any crazy ideas we suggested. I cannot wait to see what he does for our wedding and HIGHLY recommend him to all couples looking for an amazing photographer.
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1047 w madison, Chicago, IL | Chicago, The Midwest + Destination
Phillip Gregory Photography
Phillip Gregory Photography's photos