• Two photographers
• 8-10 hours of wedding day coverage
• Engagement Shoot – 1 hour (ours went for 2 hours)
• 11×14 30-pages personalized photobook (1)
• 12 x 18 enlargement 2
• 20 x 30 enlargement 1
• Full resolution DVD 1
• Total price: $1,825

We had our initial meeting with AliphAurMeem which was pleasant and we discussed all the details, everything was in order so we signed a contract with them.  The first order of business was the Engagement shoot which we ended up doing around the end of May 2010.  We went out for 2 hours and took tons of photos.  When that was all said and done we were looking to get the Engagement shoot photos prior to the wedding as we wanted to make use of a few photos at the reception.  When we asked AliphAurMeem about this they advised they would be able to get a few of the photos to us.  We received an email with a download link just shy of a month and a half after the Engagement shoot for 14 pictures.

Of course the next big thing was the wedding itself and correspondence leading up to that special day happened in a timely fashion.  No complaints regarding photography on the wedding day.  Lot’s of photos were taken and there were no issues in scheduling or locations etc.

After the wedding we were advised by AliphAurMeem that it could take up to 4 to 8 weeks to get our photos.  We had checked with some of our friends and relatives that were also recently wed and they had received their wedding photos within 4 to 6 weeks so that seemed fairly standard.  Time started to go by and we hadn’t heard anything back from AliphAurMeem so at 10 weeks I sent them an email requesting what the status of our photos were and when we might receive them.  I didn’t get a reply to my first email so at 11.5 weeks I sent them another email requesting the same information.  At that point I received a reply advising “We’re running a bit behind in our editing. We’ll be in touch as soon as the pictures are ready for download. “  Given that it was already 3 months since the wedding we were a bit surprised that we were going to have to wait even longer.  3 weeks later we received an email advising that our preview pictures were available for download and a link to download the photos.  We downloaded all the photos which were watermarked versions and looked at them all.  The following day I sent an email back to AliphAurMeem advising we had downloaded and viewed the photos and everything looked good.  More time passed and we never heard back from AliphAurMeem.

Now I have to admit that we’re pretty patient people and perhaps in this particular situation we were a bit too generous.  I don’t like to be the guy constantly hounding someone to get something done, unfortunately I think that’s going to change.  When someone provides you a service, one that you pay a lot of money for it should be their responsibility to follow through on that service and communicate with you, provide you updates and information etc.  After all, it only takes 30 seconds to pound out a 1 line email and hit send.

So at the beginning of January 2011, almost 24 weeks after the wedding I sent AliphAurMeem the following email:

“Happy New Year, hope you are both doing well.

In 6 days it’ll have been 6 months from the date of our wedding.  We can appreciate how much work is involved in the editing and touching up of hundreds of photos if not more however I think we’ve been fair in the amount of patience we’ve exercised while waiting for our wedding pictures! 6 months seems like an unreasonably long time to wait.  I’ll be honest in saying we’re disappointed that we haven’t yet received the final product yet.

At this point if the pictures are edited and done and on DVD’s ready to go we’re willing to take those and forget about the coffee table book, enlargements, and any other printing included in the package, those are things we can easily do on our own in no time at all.

Please let us know when we can pick up our photos.”

The same day I received the following replies:

1. “I am extremely sorry. I was under the impression that your pictures were edited and sent. Let me figure out what went on and I’ll take care of it.”
2. “From the email below it seems that you had received the preview pictures back in early November. Your contract includes 3 enlargements and one 11×14 30-page photobook. The reason we send the preview pictures is so you can make your selections and let us know which pictures you’d want. Our apologies if this wasn’t clear. For the photobook, if you will not be making any selections, we can design and send you a preview by tonight and you can then decide to proceed with it.”

I emailed them back the following:

“It’s true that you did send us the download link for our preview pictures back in early November.  We had also downloaded and reviewed them and replied to you as is noted below.  We unfortunately didn’t receive any instructions regarding selecting photos and were not aware anything had to be done on our part while we were waiting the past three months.  We would have appreciated a follow up email.  When I read over our previous email correspondence in retrospect my reply to you regarding the preview pictures must have seemed odd as I had not made any selections yet I didn’t receive a reply advising at that time what I needed to do. At any rate, confusion aside we will have to sit down tonight and take a look. We will email you back with our selected photos and what they are for.”

At any rate the emails went back and forth and within a couple more weeks we were advised that the photobook had gone to the printers and the enlargements were ready to be picked up at GPC Labworks on Bank St.  The photobook and the DVD with our photos were mailed to us.  At this point AliphAurMeem requested their final $500 payment which we promptly paid.  The enlargements I had to pick up myself and when I did go pick them up I only received 1 of the 12 x 18 enlargements and the 20 x 30 enlargement.  I didn’t even bother discussing that with AliphAurMeem, we had waited so long we just wanted it to be over and done with.  That aside I can get the same quality of prints at Costco for a few dollars.  When we received the DVD with our wedding photos on it we noticed the Engagement shoot photos weren’t included so I emailed them back advising of this and they mailed me another DVD.  We were surprised that there were only the 14 photos on the DVD that we had originally downloaded prior to the wedding.  I don’t understand how we could go on a 2 hour photo shoot and take so many photos only to end up with 14.  I sent them a polite email inquiring into what happened with all of the other photos that were taken which was my last email to them.  I never heard back from AliphAurMeem which was no surprise.

In the end my wife and I were quite disappointed having to wait over 6 months to get our wedding photos.  How AliphAurMeem could just forget about us for so long even given the fact we still owed them a final payment of $500 on delivery amazes me.  I really wonder if I had never sent followup emails to them how much more time would have passed before they figured it out on their own.  I would love to have the rest of our missing engagement shoot photos but I suppose they were deleted for whatever reason.  I’ve definitely learned from this experience and in the future when I use “professional” photography services again I will make sure of few things.  I’ll decline any printing services, I can do all that on my own much faster.  I won’t require any photo editing, I always have the latest version of Photoshop and editing photos is easy.  These days with digital cameras being used by professional photographers they’re just capturing data.  Data is easily copied and transferred to different media.  I’ll make their lives so simple, just take ALL the data you captured write it to DVD and provide it to me.  That shouldn’t take any longer than an hour!

That’s my recount of our experience with AliphAurMeem.  The photos they took that we did receive are very nice.  They seem like nice people and I think they have a good thing going for them.  They were also apologetic for the mishap.  The only recommendations I would make is much better communication, followup with clients it shouldn’t be the other way around, deliver in a timely fashion, deliver all photos.

[Update] We received a DVD in the mail with all our engagement shoot photos after this post was read. The enlargement print that was missing was done as well. [/Update]

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I think this is going to work pretty well and because it’s Flash I won’t have to worry about people hot linking my photos either.  I’ll let you know when it’s all done!

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The fireworks were awesome and I was able to snap off a couple shots before it started raining and I had to put the camera away.  Once the fireworks were over and the mass exodus of people flowed back to the streets everyone was in good spirits and we all started singing ‘O Canada’. I don’t think anyone was actually on key, although being in a huge crowd that spontaneously starts singing our national anthem is a lot of fun!

Here’s some photos of the fireworks… 

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Being curious I did the math to compare how much it costs me to print out a high resolution 8.5 x 11 print on high gloss Kodak Ultima paper (great quality).  The cost of the sheet plus the cost of ink used to generate the image costs me only eighty cents.  I looked around at different places that offer photo lab services, both large and small businesses and found that the same project would have cost me $5.99 for one print…WOW!  That’s a heck of a lot of money for one photo that potentially may not even turn out that well.  I think I’ll just stick to doing them at home.

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