Casey Smith Photography

I would not recommend another shoot by this photographer.

The styled shoot itself was beautiful but originally it was advertised as a smaller group and that everyone would get enough time to get all their shots. But it ended up being 28 people divided into 3 groups which isn't terrible but it's not great considering the host photographer and videographer and their friends were also shooting within the groups. But there were also bunch of videographers who needed to get their shots and the host wanted to give videographers the priority to get their shots instead of videographers being in their own group to make it easy for everyone. The florals and the tablescape were slightly underwhelming considering the cost of the shoot and the fact that there was close to 30 people there. I expected more florals and luxury. A lot of stuff was wrinkled, the cake was ruined and most of the florals were also dead by the time the first group started. Some of the florals look so bad that those photos can't be posted which is bad because this was a well known/big name florist.

The attendees also made us sign an agreement that for 90 days, we couldn't send the shoot to publication which is understandable but the host photographers had hired an actual model couple with a different designer dress and their own bouquet for their own content where as the attendees were asked to work with this model couple that were not paid, not an experienced model couple and the couple were talking during most of their portraits and was extremely difficult to work with. They also had first dibs to shoot with everything before the attendees got there and because of that the cake was basically a soup and the florals were dead since it had been sitting out for a while. It almost seems like we were cheated because the hosts got the best photos for their portfolio and publications attendees had to photograph dead flowers.

There were "guest models" but we weren't able to photograph them at the ceremony. Attendees were also not allowed to take any drone shots, only the host photographer and videographer were allowed to take the drone shots which is unfair considering the money we paid. We weren't allowed to move flatlays or bring our own flaylay styling stuff because we were promised enough flatlays already pre-curated and arranged so we couldn't move them for the sake of time but yet none of the flatlays were a whole set so we had to put together a flay lay quickly within the time allotted by getting the pieces from the other flay lays when we were supposed to have three separate flatlays.

Maybe decide on a budget ahead of time and don't sell too many tickets at the last minute to recuperate the price. Also don't be shady by getting your own separate model to photograph and treat every attendee who paid to be there with the same respect and provide the same experience that you provided for your friends. Be more organized and pay attention to detail, like iron the linens and make sure the cake isn't melting and details look good.