Awful experience with Carlos Mendoza, Cancun wedding photographer

[Jrobins]

Please read if you're considering using Carlos Mendoza for a destination wedding!!!!!

 

My husband and I chose Carlos as our wedding photographer through word of mouth. After alot of back and forth about contracts, we finally met him at the resort a few days before our wedding. When he arrived, he brought another photographer with him who would actually be doing our wedding (this wasn't discussed through our email conversations). He didn't bring any samples of what the albums would look like which should have been a red flag but I guess we were just caught up in all the wedding things and didn't think to much about it. I had seen his work on his website and it looked pretty amazing so I trusted him. He then made us sign a contract saying we would have our albums within 3 MONTHS AND that we had to pay him in full. Noone in the US pays a photographer in full before they've gotten their albums but he wouldn't do it otherwise and we only had 3 days before the wedding so we agreed.

 

Our wedding was May 15, 2010 and we received the dvd of photos to chose from in August of 2010. I then chose the photos by September of 2010 and didn't hear from him until late 2011. Months went by of me emailing him asking to edit certain photos (you know, some airbrushing here and there) but I didn't hear anything back. When I finally began threatening with writing negative reviews, he answered me apologizing and saying someone else was handling his accounts and that he hadn't seen my emails. What? By late December of 2011, he finally said he was sending out the albums. Something about going to the printer, taking 2 -3 weeks and I received the 3 albums on March 21, 2012, almost in time for our 2nd wedding anniversary. On to the albums.

 

They are TERRIBLE!!!!! We cannot believe how much we paid for albums (a little over 3,000 dollars) that look as if they were made by shutterfly. Normally, my husband says i'm being dramatic but even he was upset. Maybe my expectations were higher because I waited almost 2 years and had been told it would only take 3 months. The albums are just plain ugly, cheap looking, all the photos are huge and therefore look completely out of focus. None of the airbrushing was done. It looks as if I printed the photos myself and made my own album. I emailed him telling him how disappointed we are and his response was that no bride had ever complained and what could he do for us? I guess there's nothing he can do but I can warn other people to not make the same mistakes we did. I clearly understand that we will not be receiving any sort of refund. At least we have the dvd of photos so we will be going to someone in NY to make over the albums.