Punta Cana - Photo Phil - Phil Steingard

SusanMike2013 · June 11, 2013

Hello past brides....

I am wondering if anyone else had some trouble with using Phil Steingard

NOTE: I have beautiful pictures.. but I am slightly disapointed for the below reasons and I have yet to get a reply from him

-- some are very minor but they are adding up!!

1. Minor: I booked a year in advance, he suggested I change my wedding time from 6pm to 5pm - done even after my invites were printed

Phil told me how he was part wedding planning and knew all the resorts and how they all loved him .. I thought SUPER I hit the jackpot!

Told me I would get approx 1500 pictures of the wedding

500 for TTD - i declined this as his only day available did not work for us

2.Minor: I sent the deposit, and then two post dated chqs for the difference. I received a email stating they only recieved one chq.

After a few emails to be sure before I contacted the bank... I finally got a reply "oh it fell on the floor"! You would think they would email as soon as they found it!

3. I was told I would be contacted a month before my wedding. Two weeks before I left I emailed Phil to find out what was to be done.

I got no reply but a email at 12am a week later to say to contact him the next night was his only time to speak with me as he was leaving the day after....

4.During this phone call that was literally a week before my wedding date:

-he asks me to change the time of my reception. A week before !!! I already had my menu cards and wedding packages printed with times but I siad I would check with the resort.

-tells me the schdule for the day ( even when I told him it would not work for me as I have toddler twins .. his reply was I would have to have someone watch them for the day)

- I asked for changes to do the girls pictures first ( so my husband could stay with our children) his reply was he shoots the guys first

- he was very strict to ensure my husband was at the lobby by 10 15am to meet him ( wedding was at 5pm)

- a main concern for him was to ensure he had a spot at the reception to eat ( thats due to a mix up with another bride.. to which he made a fuss at her wedding over it)

- I requested MANYcandid shots and as many pictures of my children as possible. This was made very clear on the call

- i told him we were not doing formal dances and that our first dance was before the meal.. he was not open to that but I stuck to it and won.

All in all the whole call i got to hear how he was the best in the DR and he shoots the most wedding yak yak

I hung up the phone and called my sister crying as it was the most stressfully part of planning this wedding and i felt I had no control and he would not listen to me.

5. I reach the resort and email him to give him our room number and to let him know i could not change my reception time.

He replies to tell me "thats too bad and I will be late for the reception" To which i replied no I won't !! Again was given the heads up by a bride that missed her whole cocktail hour due to pictures

He also states to ensure there is food in the bridal suite for him .. another bride also gave me this heads up that he would expect food throughout the day. I replied to tell him to stop by the buffet as we already had plans to eat before he was showing up at 1 in the bridal suite...

6. Day of the wedding.....

I get a call in the bridal suite at 11 from my husband .. he had not yet shown up!!

I was in fits.... I had my BB with me and got no email to state he would be late. As I am going though emails to find his phone number he showed up stating he had cab trouble. Funny he mentioned a TTD session he did that morning though while we were getting pictures done!

He did the guys pictures.. got way too many of a certain groomsman in my opinion ....

Came to the bridal suite and did the girls

then we meet at 2:30 in the lobby to do first look pictures ... he then dragged my bridal party through the reosrt for two hours for unknown reasons as 99% of the pictures were of me (to which I expressed I was not that type of bride). My bridal party were good sports but joked they were only there to carry his stuff around.

We did the beach wedding...
I asked for pictures of each couple as I would be making a photo book for each couple... he took took them of them sitting down ( so not what I wanted but my own fault for not saying standing I guess).

took group shots / family pictures ..etc

Got to the reception.. asked if he would rather sit at the end to get pictures to which he replied ohh I got them. Umm ok we just got here...

MY FAVORITE part of the reception was my 20 month old daughters... one loved the dance floor and was ther dancing alone. I couldn;t wait to see the pictures of it....

9pm everything shut down and he left

A month later my cd's arrived....

NO pictures of my daughter dancing...

781 pictures.. not 1500 to which he even told my husband and a friend the day of the wedding he took

a lot of duplicates in different formats but thats good!

There are a lot of pictures not in color that I would like... there is no picture in color of My Mom/Step Dad/ Me :-( There is one but I have my eyes closed

So I email Phil with my concerns and questions and got no reply...

I am very disappointed and wondeirng if any other brides had the same experience and what they did...

Again the pictures I got were AMAZING but I feel so cheated I didn't get what I thought I would....

SammyAnna · June 13, 2013

What resort did you get married at? Did you ever get a response? I know from the Majestic FB groups he is touted over & over to be the best, but I often wonder about these groups if they are reading posts and most brides with bad reviews don't post because they are afraid of problems that the vendors would cause... it's a bummer because it would be much better to have a totally honest review. Hope you got some resolution. Congrats on your wedding! Cheers!

SusanMike2013 · June 17, 2013

I had my first bridezilla moment .. almost two months after my wedding.

I got a reply after posting here and sending another email I got a reply to which was filled excuses in red pasted directly from the email I got:

-Our day was shortened by one hour on the beach because of dinner
-You party was over at 9:00 instead of 11:00 which most wedding go to 11
-Also your dancing time was very short where most have 2 1/2 hours of that
-All of those things will make for a lot less photos because of that.

-You got married rushed for photos then rushed for dinner. Then a short 15 minute party.

-. The kids were hard to get, that can happen. I will check to see what there were for photos of the kids dancing. . But was that during the party???
Also when we take the photos you usually get about 50-60% of what is taken
-A typical wedding day and evening party the couple would receive 900 1100 photos. But a lot are from the party and extra beach photos.

I read the above excuses and thought i may lose my mind:
My day was not shorten... the times did not change. I just did not move my dinner like he asked and HE SHOWED UP LATE!
I told him in the beginning my wedding was over at 9pm..
I had dancing throughout my wedding.. there was no formal dance time. He also knew this and made the note it was not normal to have the first (and only foraml) dance before we ate. We got introduced and did our dance then..... I guess he has never watched Four Weddings!

Party was from 6pm to 9pm 3 hours for dinner dancing "party". So I have no idea where he got 15 minutes
After me telling him a number of times I want pictures of my children he is confused to when my daughter was dancing on the dance floor?

I was told the day of my wedding I would have all pictures! Not a percentage ( all my bridal party was told the same)

So I lost it upon recieving a email to place all blame on myself.
I called him... and when I expressed my disappointment he chuckled... Bring on Bridezilla..I yelled for about 30 minutes straight .. and told him just how I felt before my wedding.. during and now.
I told him I wanted all my pictures as I was told and I did not want excuses...
After a long conversation (me yelling and almost crying) he agreed to send me every picture he took.
In the middle of our covnersation I expressed that I should of put my foot down before my wedding to go by MY schedule and not his and that by rights I could ask for a partial refund due to him being late and not providing the service and products we agreed to. His reply "how much do you want"..
I told him the pictures I got were amazing and that I would NOT ask for a refund UNLESS there was no pictures of my daughter dancing.
Fine enough.. after the call I check my email and see I got a second email from him just before I called him. Ready for more excuses:

just saw some B+W of the families we normally don't do that
. One of my editors which is very good at what she does did that. I will talk to her on that????
You walked down the aisle at 5:13 after the ceremony we did friends and family photos until 5:50 we took only 10 minutes for our beach photos. I shot quick and we stopped exactly at 6:00 sharp/ That was the time of my last photo. A typical wedding even with photos before the ceremony we would take at least another 90 minutes or so of photos after the ceremony. We only took about 28 minutes. Sorry I'm not trying to pass the problem fully back on you by any means. I just know from over 1500 weddings if we run short of time I get worried. I shared that with you before coming to the Dominican. Again please call me

Note he did not "share" that with me... nor give me the heads up when I didn't change my reception time
Again it was my fault for not changing my reception time ( to which again was requested a WEEK before the wedding)... and then his editors fault to giving me incorrect pictures? To which leads me to another questions... did his editor even know what pictures I wanted? I was never told he had someone editing.

From the get go I told him it was not a traditional wedding.. what wedding is down south? But he kept trying to tell me on the call my wedding was not tradional. My reply was if you can not shot NON traditional weddings you may want to start advertising that!
That email also talked about a interview he did to talk about his great he was..... During our call I flat out told him in the first 5 minutes I would not be listenign to anything about him or how great he is.... Believe me I was bridezilla on crack!
He was going on about how he does the most weddings in the DR and he is the best and blah blah
I was done with it!

I left that email as it was not important after the call and did not warrent a reply

Sooooo then at midnight i get another email from him:

-the evening was very quiet, knowing what i know now I would of suggested on not hiring me. Reason there isn't the crazy party and activities that some weddings have
-Most wedding are 7 to 11 so more time as well
-I did get a small party going for looks like 18 minutes
-Sorry for the confusion on how many photos you would receive

-You will recieve everythign I took except the ones liek the flash didnt fire and something that had no use at all. We will work on then ASAP I will contact you before shipping. I'll enclose a $ cheque with it as well. I feel bad we didn't please you.

I would like to point out I did tell him my schedule so I am not sure what he is referring to knowing what he knows now. There was no surprises.... and any resort I contacted when picking the resort told me that the reception time frame is 3 hours.. anything over that is extra.
I am hoping the refund he is giving is not due to him not having any pictures of my daughter dancing :-(
All I can do at this point is wait to see what I actually get. And realize that if there are no pictures of my daughter dancing with her big smile and holding her blanket ... well no amount of a refund will fix that. I will be crushed. I could not of stressed enough to him that my children were his main focus.

I also spoke to other brides who indeed did get approx. 1500 pictures.....

I did have a bride tell me to be sure to let him know I was in charge, and I am kicking myself for not opening my mouth before hand (the call the week before my wedding) to tell him who the boss was and how the day would go.

We have some beautifull pictures of my wedding.... but my heart breaks when I have family asks for the pictures of my children. I reply with "I dont have them" and I am hoping they are coming.
...

I would still reommend Phil to any Bride as we got some very nice shots....
But I will also say to ensure you know what you are getting beforehand, make sure he knows what you want (get it in writing) and to make sure you are not told what you have to do on your wedding day.

SusanMike2013 · June 17, 2013