Brett Matthews Photography reviews and complaints

This is not the first complaint I have heard about this company. I HAD considered using them but was advised to rather go with a smaller individual photographer. I am so glad I did as people have complained about the company booking you and then making you pay more after they already have your photos so there is nothing you can do. And also I have heard some brides only have received their Albums 2 years after their weddings. Thats just ridiculous

I read the reviews on this site after I was dazzled by the sales pitch over at Brett Matthews and found myself confused. The photos samples shown in the studio and on their website are gorgeous, tasteful, and memorable. I shopped around and found myself looking for the special something I saw from Brett Mathews. I called the studio and confronted them about the hit-or-miss postings on the net and after a good talk with Richie, I booked Brett Matthews anyway.
Chris & Stephen were the photographers at my wedding last August 2. They were professional and at ease and they were fun. The time we took for our photos was worth every minute! The result was ~500 outstanding edited proofs.. some of them are truly works of art. We worked with Lisa to create our album and she was accommodating, light-hearted, professional, and she was lots of help sorting through those amazing photos. We are very happy with the decision to use Brett Matthews. Still have doubts? Check out our photos on their website under Aug-2-2009.

Thomas was also our photographer and he seemed totally out of control that day. Was not making our day pleasant. I am yet to recieve my pictures, I guesss I will know more when I get them at the end of the month!

We hired Brett Matthews in '07 for our wedding in July '07 in Manhattan having been impressed with their sales pitch which included promises of a nearly invisible photographer, professional attitude and guaranteed perfect pictures. What we got couldn't have been further removed from the promise. Firstly we paid and additional $500 to have "pre wedding" photographs taken in Tribeca as a way of introducing us to our photographer. The pictures may as well have been taken in a sea container. There is essentially no evidence as to where in the world they were shot. In the lead up to the wedding we are asked to provide our photographer with a list of "must have" pictures which we duely did...sadly they have become "must not have" pictures as not one of them were taken. We had asked our photographer 2 weeks before the wedding to visit the wedding venue with us to agree on places to take certain pictures. He kept putting off the meeting and eventually went there the afternoon before our wedding without us (we were in the middle of another ceremony) and spent less than 5 minutes in the facility. The day of the wedding itself was a disaster. Not only did each picture take WAY too long to take but he proved incapable of handling stressful situations (in actual fact he created his own stress), taking utterly ridiculous pictures in poses totally unnatural unless you are double jointed (creativity?) and hitting on the brides cousin on numerous occasions. He disrupted the cake cutting (IN A BIG WAY) and became wildly aggitated with the facility manager on several occasions. We have since received the pictures from the day and are utterly disgusted with the product. Key photos have been missed (no picture of bride and groom with both sets of parents being the biggest one), heads on subjects (the groome!) are half missing and in general the quality is poor. Almost all the guests commented on how visible the photographer was on the day (he eve made it into a number of the pix!). After Sales Service...so we get the pictures, and they are best described as amateur for the most part. It took us 10 months to summon the will to go back to the studio to start the album design process. One positive is that our album designer, Nicole, was excellent. She had to deal with 2 very upset clients and did so in a very professional manner. She took a list of our complaints and relayed them back to BM management. There the after sales service has ended. We have basically been told that our wedding was a difficult wedding to shoot and that despite the lack of quality in pictures we can get a $50 credit in posting our pictures online for people to view (normal cost $1 per picture...go figure). Brett Matthews DO hold you hostage by not allowing you to own your own pictures. BM DO NOT deliver on their promises of quality photographs taken by professional photographers (one exception being Rachel...if it wasn't for her we would have NO pictures to make an album). BM DO NOT believe in the credo "the customer is always right" as I am finding out in my subsequent call w/ Chris...have the courage to stand up and admit your product is lousy when it is for once their in black and white (or colour). BM ARE EXTREMELY condescending in conversations with their clients post event. BM ARE NOT worth the money and ARE TOTALLY OVERRATED. Some of you couples out there will no doubt be lucky enough to have a wonderful experience, and more power to you. But just know this...it's hit-or-miss with this outfit as you can see fom the mixed bag of reviews. Do yourself a favour and think twice before you hand over your money to Brett Matthews. Don't have them cast a cloud over your wedding day as they did ours. It's your day...not Thomas the "photographer"'s day.