Charleston Photo Video

Well, we have finally gotten our albums! Shocking I know. I thought I would never see them. My husband and I got an email from the owners before Christmas letting us know that our albums were in from the printers. So, my husband responded that we would look for them in the mail, so we could share them with our families over the Christmas holiday. We received a response that they would not send the albums in the mail. So my husband responded again that we would expect the albums in the mail, as we had already paid for them (does this sound familiar to anyone?). They responded… we will be back in the area after the new year. Again, not professional, not courteous, nor customer friendly. So, we did nothing. And I had decided that I was going to do nothing else… if we never got the albums oh well! Well, January 10^th when I got home from work there were the albums on the doorstep (via the post office). Wow. And I have to admit, they weren’t horrible, the pictures weren’t in order like I had requested, but hey…
So, all in all, I still give the company only one star because of the stress they caused us and their lack of business ethics and practices are astounding. However, I will again praise their actual photography work — I have no complaints about that — and the albums were totally acceptable.

I needed a wedding photographer on short notice and they were one of the only available photographers in the Charleston area. I talked to the couple (it’s a husband-​wife team) on the phone several times and they were both extremely nice and I felt that I could trust them. I asked to review their contract before I would agree to hire them. Reading the contract, I realized that the wording allowed them to keep all of my payment for any reason — including not showing up, not giving me photos, etc. I compared their contract to several other photographers’ contracts, and this was highly unusual. I voiced my concerns to them and they assured me that they «have never had any problems.» She told me that I needed to make an immediate decision as they are avid bikers and wanted to go to Myrtle Beach Bike week the weekend of my wedding if I wasn’t going to use them. Then, I decided to check with the Better Business Bureau, based on some of the awful reviews that I read about them on Yahoo. I saw that they had 8 claims against them, some contract related, within the past 36 months. This cast significant doubt on her statement that they had «never had any problems.» I wrote to Charleston Photo Video and told her that I had decided to use another photographer. Here is her e-​mailed response to me:
«Great– We really did not want to do the wedding any way.
Leslie»
Obviously, I am so glad that I did not use them for my wedding. This unprofessional response absolutely confirmed all of the reservations that I felt about signing a contract with them. They should stick to photographing motorcycles and leave weddings to professionals. Do yourself a favor and hire someone who actually wants to be there!