CONFESSIONS OF A BRIDE

When a bride has something to say, after all is said and the "I do's" are done, it's important to us (the wedding industry community and future brides) to hear her out. After all, what she has to say is sound advice and the best feedback one could ask for.

"A nightmare, I never thought professionals could be so unprofessional" a bride from Aliso Viejo, California describes her experience dealing with the Video/Photo service she had hired for her wedding. This bride wants to set the record straight. She had a wedding of 400 guests, and hired a coordinator for the day-of-the-wedding only. As a result, she felt overloaded with all the planning and prep work involved. She relied on advice and recommendations from family, friends, and previous brides. “Our wedding was so big and costly, my husband and I ended up having to do a lot of the work ourselves.” she says.

"I hired a video service in San Diego that hooked me up with a photographer as a package deal. Because our photographer was through the video service, I was constantly calling the videographer to confirm our photography arrangements. Three weeks before our wedding, the video person informed us he was switching us to a different photographer claiming an over- booking mix-up. Interestingly, we discovered he was pulling the same excuse with my sister, who was also planning an event. The mistake I made was not getting the name of the original photographer into the contract. I thought his verbal promise was reliable. The video service tried to push a lesser quality photographer to do our wedding, claiming our contract did not promise a specific photographer.”

At that point, the bride and her fiance drove to San Diego to confront the videographer threatening to pull out of the contract even if it meant losing the deposit. The meeting made the videographer understand their seriousness as they began discussing other options. In the end, the video person bent over backwards by arranging a good photographer, one even better than the original one. I think he finally realized that unhappy clients = negative press.