Weddingbee boards

Hi all,

I wanted to share with you an email exchange I've had with Black Dog Photography. It was pretty unprofessional on their end, and I wanted to make sure others understand who they may end up dealing with. (That said, we know this may have been limited to one individual, and one bad apple doesn't necessarily represent the bunch.)

First, some background -- my fiance and I are having our wedding in literally a year. We really want to find a great photographer, since we know it's one of the "permanent" elements that we'll always look back on. That said, we're not dealing with an unlimited budget, so our approach was to reach out to a few photographers, learn about their packages and their pricing. That way, we didn't waste anyone's time who might be beyond our budget.

We contacted Black Dog because it was included in our venue's list of vendors. We contacted them by submitting some information via their website. We received an email response from them, with some generic information about their packages. Since we were only interested in day of coverage, an engagement session and getting our photos on an CD or DVD, we asked them for a custom quote. The response we got was that they could provide us with a custom quote, but they preferred that we meet with them first before cutting out all of their products.

The person who wrote that also mentioned something about their $1000 off coupon. At that time, I thought she just had us confused with another couple, but now looking back on it, she might've been trying to make a snarky joke. Anyway, I responded to her email explaining why we were looking for a quote first. To that email, I received the following response:

"I can send my high school intern to shoot your wedding for $1500, but you may not like what you get.  

I'd be willing to bet that you are a savvy, intellectual, ivy educated, NYC professional, kind of guy.  You're a pro at setting goals and achieving them.  In fact, you've probably over-achieved nearly every expectation that anyone has ever set for you.  

So now you're engaged and you're planning a wedding.  You need to hire vendors for the wedding, so what do you do?  Of course, you send out an RFP to all of the wedding vendors in the area!

That would be perfectly logical if you were looking for a new web hosting company or a new copier.  But we're talking about hiring an artist to document your wedding day (one of the more important days in your personal life).  

How many times have you been married?  Where did you learn about wedding photography?  A website?  Some free wedding planner you got in the mail?  Bride magazine?

If photography is really important to you, you should meet with several photographers, some more expensive that others.  It's the only way for you to know what your budget should be.  

My time is completely irrelevant.  It is my job to meet with you about your wedding.  In fact, I enjoy meeting people.  

You have 365 days until your wedding.  There's time for you to meet with several photographers.  Start with me, we will sit down and go through your RFI."  

I was in disbelief when I read this email. Not only was this unprofessional, it was way over the top. I have great respect for artists, and if this person was more interested in learning about what I was going for, rather than trying to get me into the office for a consult, then she would've learned that pretty easily. Instead, she ends up sending an insulting email. No reasonable person can expect that tone to entice a prospective client to pursue a working relationship further.

Anyway, sorry if this is kind of long. I'm sharing this story because people who act like this should have their actions known.

(I've left the name of the contact at Black Dog off this post so as to keep it non-personal. However, if you're interested in who was involved so that you can avoid her, contact me and I share more details with you.) 

Yeah, I did. It really was ridiculous. The good news is that this was literally the only photographer to respond like that. It's good to know there are so many other professional photographers out there to work with.

talida just told me about this, and OMG. it could have been so easy for them to just say "sorry, we only give custom quotes when you meet with us in person". wow...

Black Dog photographed my wedding, my friends and has done numerour portraits for my family.  I am utterly disgusted by your post and shocked at how EASILY people get sucked into your obvious lies.  I have had nothing but incredible customer service from them and they are incredibly talented.  They are one of the most sought after photographers in north jersey, from what I hear and know.  It's amazing how when we have something great to say, we often don't bother to take the time to write, but when we are pissed off, we write, write, write.  I am disgusted that you, main poster, have nothing better to do with your time but post your SAME EXACT post on every wedding message board you could think of.  I found your post on another site and then did a general google search for black dog and saw that you posted your same exact post on other wedding boards.  I felt obligated to respond to your post wherever I saw it b/c I couldn't believe that you would intentionally set out to hurt a business that I"M SURE really did you no harm.  You are a disgruntled person who clearly did not get what he or she wanted from black dog.  Perhaps you tried to negotiate and get a bargain basement price from a high end photographer and you did not get what you wanted, which is why you have posted this LIE!!  My advice is to get a grip and find better things to do with your time as it is obvious you have too much time  on your hands.  My advice to anyone else reading these posts and replies is to not take the posting of one pissed off person as REALITY.  Do your resarch.  Do you see other bad postings about black dog from other posters on other boards....My guess is NO.  You will only find THIS post over and over and over again on every message board this person could think of.  Unbelievable!

Hey Emily (from Black Dog),

I'm going to respond to your obviously-fake "testimonial" as best as I can without violating Weddingbee's policy on personal attacks/snarkiness.

I think you should give people more credit. It's clear that you're posing as "a client" who's responding to my story about my interaction with you. If you read the thread, you'll see that we weren't the only ones to have issues with your customer service.

Your boss had emailed me an apology for your rudeness. I was content to leave it at that. Obviously, I'm tempted to re-hash this now. However, I won't. I think when people deal with you, they'll eventually understand what I'm talking about.

Actually, after reading alisuew's post, I did some research, and I no longer think she is Emily from Black Dog. However, I still question the authenticity of her post.

Alisuew, you claim that Black Dog photographed your wedding. Yet, on Brides.com, you posted on this thread -- http://www.brides.com/forums/planning-and-etiquette/thread.jspa?messageID=538346 -- which shows that your wedding isn't until January 2010. You had another post that explicitly said that your wedding isn't until next year, so I'm not sure how/why you would say here that they've already photographed your wedding.

If you're truly an unbiased customer, that's fine. I'm sure Black Dog is possible of giving good customer service, and best wishes to you for your wedding. My original post was to show that they're also very likely to give terrible customer service, and to let others know about it. You're as free to post a positive review as I am to post my own negative experience.

If you want to give me your email address, I'll forward you the email exchange between myself and Emily, to verify that there are no lies. I can also forward you the email from Roy that calls Emily's comments obnoxious. My posts have been entirely truthful, and I'm able to back that up. Are you?

 I think tnd2010 took the e-mail response from Black Dog too personally when it is actually a very logical, albeit direct response. Photography is, in fact, art and the vendor Black Dog is passionate about preserving that aspect of their work.

On another note, tnd2010's post should not hold much clout as they have been trying to smear Black Dog's reputation by creating the same username on several blogging wedding websites.  They are not using these websites in the way they were intended.  This user does not create profiles along with any of these accounts and just posts this same e-mail over and over again.  If this user was truly a concerned customer planning a wedding then, wouldn't they take the time to review other vendors or create a profile?

By the way, you can find me with the same username on countless other wedding websites as I tirelessly plan my wedding.