Steven Michael Photography

Do NOT, under any circumstance, hire this man for your wedding. I will explain why I feel this way below. My wife and I got married in April of 2022, so throughout 2021 we were looking for vendors for our wedding. Steven had a good price point, and we found his personality likable, so we hired him for the day, specifically his two photographer package. All seemed to go smoothly the day of, and our contract stated that we would receive our photos 3-4 weeks after the wedding. On the four week date, we reached out asking for an update. He said he would need about one more month to finish, which we understood because he also had a full time job in New York City. A month comes and goes, and we begin to reach out about once a week asking for updates on our photos. We finally received photos more than four months late, but we received, at most, half of what we paid for. Many key times were missing from the photos he took, and we received less than five photos that were taken by his second photographer. He did not respond to many attempts at contact asking where the remainder of our photos were, and he finally resurfaced after legal action was threatened against him. He claimed in a brief email that all usable photos were delivered, and once again disappeared. He didn’t realize that we had already gotten a hold of his second photographer, who informed us that all her photos were given over to him to edit. But with these photos seemingly lost at this point, we will never receive the photos centered around myself (the groom) with my side of the wedding party, and anything else she happened to take. I don’t know if he had a severe technology issue, or deleted them truly on accident (the fact that we received a handful of photos taken by her makes me believe that he was working on them, deleted them on accident, and then didn’t have the guts to admit it), but we signed a contract, and he didn’t deliver on what we paid for. He ignored the Better Business Bureau contacting him, after we filed a complaint through them. He ignored a lawyer, who sent a letter demanding the remainder of the photos or a refund given. He ignored the Small Claims Court contacting him about a court date. He even ignored “The People’s Court,” who wished to put our case on television (I have the voicemails to back this up). In all, we have at least 35 attempts at making contact with him. This is sadly a very abbreviated version of the trauma this man has put my wife and I through. We have to accept at this point that we did all we could to seek justice for the wrongs he has committed, but at this point, not much more can be done sadly. But, what we can do is help ensure that nobody else falls prey to this man. If you want to have a photographer who will have a friendly personality at first but has no intention of following through on what you pay him for, by all means hire Steven. If you want someone who will actually do his job, then hire, literally, anybody, else.

I am also a photographer. I was contacted by Steven to fill in for him as he was "suck at the airport" long story short he never paid me for my work and ghosted the couple. They had to pursue legal action to get the photos from him. It seems he never intended to attend the wedding and never paid me in full. I hope he stops doing this to other couples as this is unprofessional and disgusting

Similar to the review before this - he bailed on our engagement shoot and said he had a family member pass - when I asked for my deposit back he would not provide it and said “it’s sad hair and makeup mean more than the loss of my family member” obviously this death was a lie as he has used this before. He also said a family member passed when he canceled a zoom meeting. After asking for the deposit back He threatened to take me to court and I’m thankful I found someone else before he could ruin our wedding

Please do not hire Steven. I’ve had the most unpleasant experience working with him. We hired him for our wedding photos which included taking engagement photos. He was responsive while getting the deposit, however when it came to setting up our engagement photos, he become distant. We had to reach out to him on multiple platforms before receiving a response. He let us know he had a family tragedy, we responded with compassion and gave him space. When it came time to setting up the engagement session again, he let us know his availability and we finally set something up. He emailed us at 5:30 in the morning the day of our session saying he had another family tragedy and he wouldn’t be attending the session. Didn’t offer to reschedule, didn’t communicate. I sent him emails asking him what will happen moving forward and when he finally responded he told me to have some compassion and that “my family and personal life is greater than your wedding” which I found extremely rude and unnecessary. I wasn’t asking to be greater than his family or personal life, I just wanted an answer. He said he wouldn’t be our photographer anymore, but he’d get a member of his team to take over. I’m sure his team is talented, however I’m not comfortable working with anyone associated with him either. I’m losing money because he took the deposit already, but at least I’ll have peace of mind.