Grape Video

0 STARS
I don’t want any bride to go through the same thing I did so please read this review and watch our video before giving Grape Video a $ 500 non-​refundable deposit.
After doing research online for a videographer in the Chico area, watching all of Grape Video’s sample videos and reading all of these amazing reviews on Unilocal I decided to go with them. I spoke to the owner Sharon Robinson who convinced me to put a $ 500 non-​refundable deposit right away to «save the date». Booking this company to film our wedding was a HUGE MISTAKE and we are paying for it now. We went with the Zinfandel package, which costs $ 2,700 in total. The package includes one camera, 7 hours of coverage, 4 songs and a professionally edited HD video.
Grape Video advertises wedding videos that are like «a piece of poetry… with expert video artistry applying a keen sense of selection and timing… recreating your perfect day through hours of professional video editing.» They also advertise a 90 day or less turnaround time as well as having editors who are Final Cut Pro certified.
After patiently waiting for 5 months, our video arrived. I was so excited because the video was the one thing that I wanted the most. All of our wedding photos turned out GORGEOUS so I was ecstatic to see the film version of that. My husband and I were completely shocked at what we saw. Our wedding video is so shaky, out of focus, grainy and has horrible lighting. They also put the wrong song in the introduction. Parts of it looks like someone took a camera phone and filmed it. I called Sharon who said that she hadn’t seen the video before it was sent out to us. She promised to watch it and call me back. She tried to avoid my phone calls and I spoke to her when I called the company phone from another number. She said that she was as «shocked» as I was about the poor quality and wanted to have her son Brandon Robinson watch it and give his input. She gave every excuse possible for all of the technical problems that her «professional» company should have been able to prepare for. (i.e. filming our reception with no light when it was an outdoor wedding with minimal lighting) Not to mention that our FACES were blurry during our VOWS because the camera was focused on the bright hills in the background.
After all of this happened I went back online to re-​read the Unilocal reviews and do more research. 70% of the 5 star reviews were removed by Unilocal because they filter for fake reviews. This happens when the reviewer only has one review and it just so happens to be an amazing or a really bad one about the company. This protects businesses and consumers from fake reviews. One of the amazing reviews they got is from Brandon R. Get it? Brandon Robinson, her son. Sharon was supposed to film our wedding, but two days before called and said she was sending her «team of videographers». I honestly thought, «Awesome! We get two videographers.» I found out that the two people she sent to shoot and edit our wedding was Sean Smith (her nephew who graduates in 2014 from Sac State in BUSINESS) and Darren Shepard who edited our video. Darren is a screenwriter. To give Darren some credit, his shots weren’t shaky like Sean’s. However, he did a horrible job editing the video that included a weird zoom in on my armpit during the first dance. I asked Sharon whether he was Final Cut Pro certified and she did not respond to that. Sharon now says that she thinks that all I want is my money back. Of course I want my money back! Wouldn’t you want your money back if you paid for a professional video and got a POS in return?
I will say one good thing about the cameramen at our wedding. They were very unobtrusive and I hardly noticed they were there. Now I wish they were never there at all.
Please don’t take my word for it because the proof is in the pudding. Here is a link to our «professionally shot and edited wedding video». Would you be mad if you paid $ 2,700 for this?

My video was amazing, magical, emotional … captured everyone and everything I wanted along with the perfect song choice throughout. The video was extremely professional and I am the most happy with my video. I WILL LOVE MY VIDEO FOREVER. Thank you Grape Video! Here is a snapshot …

Wow, Brandon and John were really awesome for my wedding recently held at Mills College. John is so professional that I didn’t even realize he was there filming. The final DVDs are amazing and they’re happy to customize the video if you’d like. If you are going to have a videographer for a wedding, you MUST MUST MUST use Grape Video.