Weddingbee Blog

Kristy Cummings Photography–F.

I got married nearly four months ago, and I admittedly haven’t put up many vendor reviews yet.

That’s because all my wedding and vendor-related energy has been dedicated toward a problem of massive proportions: my wedding photographer.

Here’s a super-condensed version of what has transpired:

In August 2006 we hired Kristy Cummings to shoot our wedding. Leading up to the wedding, I had no problems communicating with her via either email or phone. She also showed up at the wedding, stayed for the allotted time, etc. No problems there. However, immediately after the wedding I had great difficulty contacting her. She’d told us that our photos would be ready ‘two or three weeks’ after the wedding and that deadline came and went–no photos.

When I finally got ahold of her, she cited personal issues and promised that the photos would be in the mail shortly. They weren’t. She continued ignoring our attempts to contact her (even some strongly-worded emails my dad sent, one of which mentioned seeking legal recourse). At the end of July, two months after the wedding, she agreed to meet with my parents and hand over the CD of unedited images, the DVD of finished images, and the slideshow DVD. She stood them up–didn’t appear at the meeting.

A few days later I drove down from my college town and Mom and I went out to her studio in Harrisonville (about 30 miles outside Kansas City). When we showed up then we were able to get the CD of unedited images, and some (about 300) edited ones. Kristy promised that the remaining edited images would be mailed to me in a few days, along with the slideshow DVD. That was the last contact we had with her.

In the middle of August my parents stopped by her studio again, only to see a notice on the door that it was temporarily closed. Since that time, I’ve been contacted by four other brides who had also hired Kirsty. One was having trouble getting ahold of her own wedding photos, three had upcoming weddings and were unable to get ahold of Kristy to go over details.

Of the photos that we received, many are of wonderful quality. However, she didn’t even take (or edit) many photos that we requested–there are only two images of the getaway, none of us with our families, very few of me and Mr. Blueberry, almost none of me alone, just one of Mr. Blueberry alone, etc. We’re missing several key poses. That once-in-a-lifetime event is over, and we’re not at all satisfied with what we have to show for it.

That is my honest review, and I did my best attempt at being even-handed even though it is such a touchy subject for me.  I get angry and even start crying sometimes, just thinking about what we have missed out on and will never get back.