Essence Photo & Video

We found Essence online, we liked the prices and their website was nice. On the day of the wedding the photographer showed up with An Assistant (young girl in training) who we were not informed. We thought it would be a good thing and they would get more pictures together. Instead, he was teaching her at OUR wedding and wasting time. He took only One picture of the bride’s brother when he was walking down the isle. When we tried to talk to them they blamed us for everything, even after giving them the names of the family members before the wedding. The emails and letters that they sent us were very disrespectful. I would never recommend them to anyone. After months of frustrations they had to Investigate everything and released our pictures. more

I got married last year in July. As one prepares to get married, you look for the best prices. I was looking at different photographers, but everyones prices seemed so outrageous to me. I came upon Essence and thought there prices were decent. What I thought was only going to cost $1400 cost way more and the pictures were not very good. I have no memories of anyone at my wedding because the photographer only focused on the wedding party and if you werent on the dance floor, then I didnt even get a shadow of you. Then when it came time to pick out pictures for the album, extra money was due for that as well. It took over 7 months to get my album. I also was suppose to get digital prints of my pictures a year after the wedding. We are now 2 months over the year mark and no one is returning my call.\r My advice is go somewhere else. Cons: Hidden Costs more

Extremely dissatisfied with the photos, album design, quality of prints, customer service and how long it takes to get anything done with Essence PV!!!! Our photographer brought 5 cameras to the wedding and took lots of photos! The natural photos were OK, but the important traditional photos are horribles...everyone is looking at different places, b/c nobody told us to look at a certain spot as they were being taken so fast. It was so difficult to find a good shot of bride and groom and with our family! The outdoor pic are very dark and the studio tried to fix them, but made them worse!!! I spent lots of time to help design our album, b/c it was terrible..now the prints are such low quality and look unprofessional quality paper! Some of the photos as enlarged look really blurry! After waiting 9 months and spending lots of $$$$ without album and I got nothing but lots of frustrations and wasted time! I have been trying to get my money back for the past 3 months to cut losses but they are uncooperative and keep trying to fix the problems, but no positive results and no money back! My friends that recommended me to them are also dissatisfied with their prints and quality! My recommendation is to BE AWARE AND STAY AWAY FROM ESSENCE PV!!! Pros: good natural shots, good salesmanship upfront Cons: bad service, low quality images, bad designs, very slow turn around time more

Essence is the best! They are very flexible with their photo packages. I picked my package after the wedding day. My photographer listened to us and incorporated our requests into how she shot our wedding day. The photos were gorgeous and the album is a beautiful magazine style album. We also loved the highlight reel from our wedding video. They helped make our day perfect and now we have all the memories forever! more

Essence did an awesome job, but even more importantly, they gave us great experience. The photographer stayed relaxed, joked around and just kept things easy going and fun. I forgot my photographer's name, but she showed up a few minutes early and got beautiful pictures. Their office staff helped me every step of the way in designing my album and it is gorgeous. I would highly recommend Essence, they are top notch! Pros: Great photographer - journalistic style photos - helpfull office staff more

When we were shopping for a wedding photographer we checked into these guys. The first salesman was, frankly, the definition of a p.i.a. He stuck to his 'script' like a robot. If we wanted see more of a certain photographer he said that we had to leave a deposit. If we wanted to meet with a photographer, we had to leave a deposit. It was more about getting a sale than answering our questions of finding someone we were comfortable with. I was suspicions of them anyhow as we had a friend use them and she was not particularly happy with the pictures that she received, and that is why we were being so careful in our selection. We went elsewhere. more

We hired Essence to shoot both photography and video for our wedding over a year ago.\r \r The photos, for the most part, were very good. The photographer was friendly, and we should be getting our digital negatives soon (although they're charging $25 to ship a couple copies of CDs and a piece of paper). We had very many beautiful photos to choose from, and we received a canvas print with our album. Double check your album to make sure you get the right pictures. One or two of ours were wrong.\r \r Video, on the other hand, was poor. Essence advertises BlueRay capabilities, but we opted for standard definition since the format war was still active. In any case, the quality was very lacking. The picture was extremely grainy. The editing was lazy. The second camera was pointless. Set up at the back, it had an awful picture. Transitions between cameras also transitioned the mics of the cameras, and the DVD menu was the first template option that popped up when I opened Final Cut Pro. DVDs are branded with the Essence look and feel. Worst of all, perhaps, is that on the disks of raw footage, they slapped their website URL right over the video. They cut together a couple montages that are nice, but nothing fantastic. To their credit, they did capture the speeches and major events on film.\r \r Overall, excellent photography and average to below average video. Pros: Good photographs Cons: Bad video more

I looked at eight different photographers before I went with Essence and they had the best price by far with what they offer. They pair you with a recommended photographer based on the style you desire and you choose which photographer you would like with no extra charge. Other photographers charge a fee for that. Also, they are wonderful about meeting your needs and do GREAT work. The best part is that you can have your negatives after one year. The included canvas is a nice perk as well. The customer service is wonderful and I am very happy with my pictures. People who have viewed them said the photography work was the best they had every seen. My photographer was Mike and really captured the perfect moments of the day. more

They really took the time to pair me with a photographer that would work well with my personality and what I wanted. We got books with all our proofs and no water markings (basically a wallet of every picture) and they were fairly quick to put them online. They also didn't push the high end album packages and were supportive about my choice for the most basic (""traditional"" album). Would definitely recommend. Pros: Staff, service Cons: Average prices more

We had an awesome experience with Essence- our photographer Eric was very professional and fun too. I liked getting the free canvas they give you and getting our digital negatives for free. Everyone was very nice and helpful. We were referred by our friend who also had a great experience. anyway that's my .02 :-) Pros: free canvas, free digital negatives, get to see photog work b4 booking, good service more

So many problems. Horrible service. They don't call you back. I will never reccommend them to anyone. more

Spent over $5000 at this company for my wedding. They missed the most imortant pictures of the bride and groom and they gave me a video with no audio, and they can't even fix it! And they won't work with me to give me a fair refund. Do not use them for an important event! more