My husband and I are extremely disappointed by the work of Steve and Laura Janowicz at Palm Tree Studios and under NO circumstances do we recommend them for weddings. Our expectations were not unrealistic or unreasonable. The problem lies with Steve and Laura. They lack the people skills, customer service, and personal and professional resources to handle photographing and videoing a wedding. They prioritize sales at the expense of creating good client relationships. We made a huge mistake hiring Steve and Laura and entrusting them with our memories. Steve is a hard-core salesman and quickly reveals an abrasive and bullying personality when confronted with challenges. He told us repeatedly what a ""great deal"" or ""discount"" we were getting while simultaneously nickel and diming us. In fact, our total costs to Steve and Laura were about $3500. Unfortunately, this did not reflect the quality of our product. Steve and Laura did not consult with us prior to our wedding to determine what was most valuable to us to preserve on our photographs and video. They brought an ""intern"" (who appeared to be a high school student) and an additional photographer with them to our wedding. Presumably, this was to assure all necessary photographs and video were captured. Yet the products were sloppy, incomplete and unprofessional. Here are some examples: Steve and Laura at Palm Tree Studios provided us with two CDs, which included every photo they took (a total of about 2000). First, on one of the CDs there were 150 photos that were not ours. They belonged to a stranger! Second, none of the 2000 photos, save the few they used for their own advertising on Facebook, were edited. One instance: they did not edit out a towel on the floor that was in all the formal group shots, though they promised to do so at the time. Further, many of the shots were utterly amateur. For example, several of the shots of mother and bride walking down the aisle had looming shadows behind them cast by the flash, something that a professional photographer would see immediately in real time. As a result, we requested that Steve and Laura edit 50 or so of our photos. I painstakingly went through all 2000 photos to find 50, which took me hours - hours that Laura and Steve should have been doing this job. Steve ranted at my husband on the phone, telling him that they were never going to do weddings again, but we see that is not true. When it came to our videography, in our 45 minute video, one third consisted of still photos we already had, put in a slideshow and set to music. The second third of the video was the ceremony, as expected. And the final third of the video were aspects of the reception. When I saw this part, I was upset that the 4 toasts were barely included - a few seconds of each. Steve and Laura failed to include the toasts in a video promised to portray ""reception details."" I contacted Steve and asked him for the footage of the toasts. He agreed, but only if I paid more. Ultimately, we took legal action in order to obtain the footage of the wedding toasts, but the footage is incomplete since they failed to record the toasts in their entirety. At the end of our communications, Steve told me I was ""ungrateful,"" yet he used my name in a testimonial on his website. Future brides and grooms, save yourself the heartache, aggravation and money. Hire someone else.
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