4.1 out of 5.0
Quality of Service:
4.0 out of 5.0
Professionalism:
3.5 out of 5.0
Flexibility:
4.0 out of 5.0
Responsiveness:
5.0 out of 5.0
Value for Cost:
4.0 out of 5.0
I found George Street's name just off one of the wedding vendor searches online. We met with Jillian at their Schaumburg location. We were very impressed with their initial presentation and believe me we looked at A LOT of photographers. Your photos and video are what last forever so it was a very important decision. Out of all of the photographers, packages, and prices that we had, we kept coming back to George Street and found outselves comparing everyone to them. We booked them a year and a half in advanced. They were very flexible with our budget and worked with us to get what we wanted for a price we were comfortable paying...they even worked out a payment plan with us since we booked so far out from our wedding.
We chose Chris Ligeza as our photographer. We were allowed to review portfolio's of all of the photographers that were available for our date, and we liked his work the best. Plus he had a pretty good reputation considering he was booked for every weekend in 2009.
Emily was our coordinator and was always very responsive via email when I had questions.
We went to their Chicago studio for our engagement pictures and were VERY pleased with how those came out! Our photographer Hannah was a little strange and the actual photo session itself was a little awkward but the photos came out great!!
Both our photographer and videographer called us the week of the wedding to finalize details and we chatted just to get to know each other a little better. Ethan was our videographer and he was fantastic!! Showed up early, stayed out of the way, and was really funny! We got along great with him and really liked him a lot. I think he had fun with us too! He even offered to stay for a little longer at the reception.
I can't say we were too thrilled with our photographer Chris though. For someone with his reputation I certainly expected a lot more. He was a whiney, irritating jerk most of the day. It rained the day of the wedding and my family doesn't have the largest house, so when pictures were forced inside prior to the ceremony he did nothing but complain about how little room he had to work with. He actually made my mom take paintings off the walls and rearrange furniture in our living room while we're all dressed up in our best. He did nothing but complain the whole time at my house. During the ceremony he was fine. Once we got to the reception hall he did nothing but rush me. I ended up having to bustle my dress in the parking lot because he wanted to start taking pictures immediately, he didn't even give me time to go and put my stuff down in the bride's room or change my shoes. When we went out onto the golf course there was a "jump shot" that I really wanted taken. Again, it had rained that day and he still dragged us all through the wet grass and mud and took like 100 pictures of us jumping up and down! It was very difficult for me, being in heels, I was just digging into the ground. He kept saying "oh I thought you had your flip flops on" and I said repeatedly "well you didn't give me a chance to chang into them!". After repeatedly ignoring my comments that it was very difficult for me to continue doing this shot in the wet grass, mud, heels, and a big wedding dress, he got aggitated when my husband told him that we were not going to continue jumping. We went out onto the golf course with him where he continued to get irritated and rude with us when I told him I couldn't do what he was asking me to do because he had me standing in puddles of mud in my wedding gown! The bottom of my dress is black now! He had Kurt kneeling on concrete and when Kurt was complaining of how much it hurt, Chris told him to man up basically! I expressed my irritation with him and he told me to "chill out". During cocktail hour, we were in the lobby taking pictures in front of this fountain. My neice and nephew were my flower girl and ring bearer but were both sick the day of the wedding. My sister (my maid of honor) and brother in law (one of our groomsmen), their parents, were tending to their sick children and missed some of the pictures. We repeatedly told Chris about this and to not worry about them being in some of the pictures. He would ask me where they were and when I would remind him that the kids were sick and their parents were dealing with their sick children, he had ZERO compassion, and would say in a very SNOTTY tone, "well do they know they're supposed to be in these pictures?" referencing the whole family including the sick 3 and 4 year olds!!! During the reception we provided food for him and Ethan. The banquet manager escorted them to where they would be sitting and were told that they would be fed when the rest of the guests meals were brought out. Chris had the audacity to come up to me, the bride, at the head table, to complain that they still hadn't gotten their meals. Well no one had at that point yet and I couldn't belive he hunted me down for that! He should have gone and found the banquet manager if he had that big of a problem with waiting a few minutes. I thought that was really unprofessional. And the manner in which he addressed it to me was very "whiney".
I've been very pleased with the service that I have received thus far from George Street, but Chris was not a very good reflection of them when it really counted. Ethan was wonderful, but Chris, not so much.
We just got our photos back and for the most part they're great. I'm a little disappointed that a lot of the shots are so far away. Chris made my mom take a painting off the wall in our living room and the corner of that painting can be seen in every picture! He took so many random pictures at my church prior to the ceremony of statues, the baptismal font, plaques in honor of the deceased, and flowers that had nothing to do with our ceremony so while he was wasting his time doing that he didn't capture any of our guests arriving or anything. There are certainly enough photos to capture how awesome our day was, but he kind of sucks as a photographer.