Weddingbee boards

***Note: this post was initially pulled as SPAM because the vendor didn't appreciate true things being written about him and I didn't respond to the email (which was sent on a Fri afternoon to an old address) within 48hrs. I also posted this review on WeddingWire, but it's been disputed for the same ridiculious reasons. **

Please comment if you've experienced the same thing- or if you want your opinion to be heard. WeddingBee needs to hear what their community has to say, otherwise this is just another ratings site run by vendors.

I’ve gone back and forth on how and when to write this review. Jonathon Campbell Photography was the worst experience I had while planning my wedding. Instead of being excited about flowers and a wonderful future with my fiance, I spent time worrying about money that was owed to us and how I could get out of his contract.

After taking our engagement pictures, Jonathon and Sharon claimed that we needed to begin payment on an album that we had not contracted for. After proving that we weren’t contractually bound to the album, they essentially held our engagement pictures hostage and said if we wanted to talk contracts, we could have them after the wedding. This was after receiving several emails from Sharon claiming the disc was in the mail.

Jonathon gave us the option to excuse our differences and get a new photographer (and receive our deposit back), or to put this behind us and have him shoot our wedding. We chose the former, offered to pay the price of our engagement shoot $400 (even though we didn’t and still don’t have pictures) and elected to find a new photographer. Upon doing so, Jonathon Campbell said he would need us to sign a document letting him out of the contract. When we looked over the contract, we saw that Jonathon Campbell Photography was trying to limit our speech (or our friends’ speech) about this incident via text or voice. Naturally, we refused to sign this document which limited our freedom of speech. Jonathon Campbell Photography then denied the return of our money, since we would not sign a contract that threatened our right to speak about this incident. One of the most frustrating parts of this whole situation is that Jonathon and Sharon Campbell have never attempted to apologize for forcing us to purchase an album that we hadn’t agreed to.

My husband and I were married August 14th, 2010 and we have still not received our deposit back from Jonathon Campbell Photography. We have since filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau in hopes that no other brides and grooms will face a situation like this- during what’s supposed to be the happiest time of their lives. After this experience we chose the top photographer in Nashville, with the highest package we could afford. It was worth it.

what a horrible experience!  i'm sorry you had to go through that.  i would continue to post reviews about this guy until BBB contacts him.  i can't believe he would even limit your speech in a contract. that's unbelieveable.

I've already contacted the BBB and now he has a C-. Still working on combatting it to date. He flags everything I write as spam. What a loser, too? I mean honestly, be a good photographer and take pictures instead of stalking your reviews online.

Oh darn! I didn't even see what that person posted! Wish I could've seen it. As far as I know all comments are gone, but let me know if you still have it

She used them for her wedding and they're super best friends now, which makes sense to defend your friend. But in the situation I think it rendered him less credible, that his friend had to come to his defense and not just another bride that had a good experience.

That'll be interesting for sure, @wanderer. I feel bad that people were so enraged at each other and that things got personal on the last post about this. There really isn't anything personal about it when you take out all of the details.

We paid $1250 for pictures (engagement & wedding)

We had our engagement pictures taken

Photographer still has our $1250 and engagement pictures

------

Another funny thing is that the photographer initially accused us of being cheap. The new photographer that we got was 3x his cost.

I'd like to focus on the situation at hand, but for anyone who is interested in seeing how great our new photographer turned out (blessing in disguise) I've posted a link to those pictures

http://www.grayphotograph.com/blog/?p=7525

But I would really like to keep this thread focused on how to stop awful vendors like Jonathon Campbell Photography from thinking that they can run all over brides. Clearly he doesn't know me well enough- because I won't stop. He's hurt me and it's passed, but I'll do ANYTHING to keep this from happening to another bride. And I thank everyone who's commented on here in support of me. We should demand that these websites maintain their integrity.

@sgarrison2: on a brighter note... you, your husband and your wedding pictures are all GORGEOUS!  i have a friend getting married in nashville and i will definitely be showing her your photos.

I agree with those who want to know why posts like that are getting removed.  And your new photographer did a fantastic job!

I've just linked this thread on my Twitter [Link Removed per self-promotion policy] because this topic deserves much more publicity then just my specific incident...guess that's why the local news talked with my husband.

@PitBulLover:

Ephotos? We didn't get any photos...

Again, we never received any Digital or Physical copy of the engagement shoot...they just blogged about the shoot. Unless you count an email with 3 low res files to put on a save the date postcard.

OH, AND THEY USED US IN AN ADVERTISEMENT.

We've got the screen cap to prove it, and I bet they didn't know we knew about that...

@mrsmdphd:

$1k+ was the first payment for the two shoots: engagement and wedding.

It wasn't the total cost of the whole package, that was just the first payment we made.

I guess the first thread with nearly 50 comments is lost in oblivion since the vendor complained (google cache still has it), but I hope some of those who contributed to the first thread can re-voice their thoughts here.

If the experience can be documented and made public on the internet, hopefully future brides will be able to see some of the things we had to overcome and it will help them.

@PitBulLover: definitely deleted, but thanks to you and everyone else commenting here we can hopefully bring the discussion back.

TinyTina: definitely a blessing in disguise :)

jaylii9: Blogged us, used us in ads, and so on...

I agree that WeddingBee shouldn't have taken the original post down. If the reason they took it down is because the vendor is an advertiser, then I think it is incredibly shady. WeddingBee, WeddingWire, etc needs to remember that without brides, they would have no advertisers.

Dear WeddingBee, we want answers.