Aava Photography Company

I’m extremely disappointed. The photographer did not respect my requests. Every single picture is taken from a lower angle, looking up at my chin. Even the thinnest people photographed have double chins. I would have been frustrated even if i had not specifically asked that he angle the camera differently. What brides WANT to look like giant buildings? a flattering perspective for a skyscraper is very different than a flattering perspective for a person. This photographer had one perspective and was unwilling to break from it.
There was no variety. He did not put any effort into taking flattering pictures of anyone. I hate nearly every photo. Huge waste of money. I had an amazing wedding day and i love many photos my friends took so it wasnt just how we all looked! The photographer was a nice guy, but i guess he had a vision and just dismissed anyone else’s requests.
I’m just very disappointed. Even if ONE picture had turned out well – but no, every picture is the camera pointed up at my chin from below.

Despite the bad reviews I decided to go in for a quote just to see if maybe it was worth the pricing and maybe I could request Nick. Mae was very pushy and it turned me off immediately. I ended up leaving without signing anything and found another photographer. Mae then called me to see if I was interested and I kindly told her no, she then started telling me that I would never find anything cheaper. I told her I already signed with another photographer and I loved her work so I didn’t mind paying more.
She ended up calling me two more times to try and sell me a photo booth. After I ignored the calls I guess she got the hint.
I don’t like pushy sales people, I understand the need to make money but I don’t think that’s the way to do it.

I used Aava for video and photographs for my wedding about 5 years ago. While we were able to salvage some good pictures for the wedding album, we were upset about a number of things during and after pictures/​videos taken:
1. It was really sunny the day of the wedding and all my outdoor pictures are terrible because there is sun in my eyes and I’m not able to open my eyes or smile. If they noticed it after a few pictures and moved me away from direct sunlight, I think the pictures would have turned out a lot better
2. He always told us to do the same 4 poses for each picture. We told him we were uncomfortable with certain poses (such as kissing on camera) and he kept insisting to have us do them. Even asking in front of our parents when we told them our parents are conservative and don’t like this sort of pda on camera.
3. Our videographers disappeared for 2 hours during dinner. No one could locate them.
4. There’s hardly any pictures of me smiling because they just took the picture (s) without looking at our faces. There’s so many pretty pictures but out faces look awkward and couldn’t use it for the album.
5. My sister got married a year later and had students do both for her wedding. It was a dramatic difference in the look.
I wouldn’t recommend them. The only reason I gave them two stars is because I could pick out just enough pictures for the album and framing.
Their preview of other weddings were clearly done by someone else. My pictures def. Did not turn out the same.

My husband and I used AAVA Studio for our engagement session and about a month before the wedding I cancelled our contract with them and found a new company. I was not comfortable with how the place was run and I did not like the style of photography most of their photographers performed — it was all very basic and not as artistic/​sentimental as I was looking for.

I used aava for my wedding 2 years ago and I still am talking about how bad it was. I ended up going there because they seemed to have the best looking photos and seemed to have it together and be a good deal. They were very hard to work with after signing the paperwork. They never let me meet with my photographer before the wedding even though I asked several times and they got to be pretty rude about me asking. When the photographer showed up he smelled so bad that my family didn’t want to take pictures. And because we had never got a chance to speak he didn’t know what kind of pictures I wanted so I told him I wanted just normal posed nice pictures of the family and bridal party and then basically candids through the day and night. He insisted on doing these pictures ex: my brother and I wrestling he kept saying «now rough each other up» and I told him no thanks we aren’t that kind of family and he wouldn’t have it. And I felt really awkard and annoyed because I felt like we were wasting time.
What made me dislike this company is that after the wedding I wrote a review on
and gave them 3 stars. It wasn’t a bad review I didn’t say anything about his smellyness and within minutes of me posting the review that called me and told me I had to take it down and give them 5 stars. I told her I wasn’t happy with everything after the experience and that’s why I was posting the review. She told me to take it down and they would give me $ 200 in free prints.
I don’t think that is good buisness.

Short review: Craig was an excellent photographer. Mae (the owner) is sweet and gives you lots of options and creative leeway. The photos came back quickly and in good quality. Any problems I had, they comped me in other ways: Free photos, extra hours, discounts here, etc. All of our 1200 photos came to us for free on 3 DVD discs. Problems: Duplicate photos, missing a portrait, cropped photos… Nothing that can’t be fixed.
Long review:
Married: October 2012. We had a very short engagement and booked Aava only a month before the wedding; I was so grateful they could work on a short time frame.
So here’s the breakdown. Mae is actually VERY sweet if you’re willing to be familiar and open with her. She is an ethnic woman – ethnic women will like you better if you treat them like family and not like a distant business partner. She asked questions about me, my family, my fiancé, and our wedding dreams. Then she gave me 10 – yes, 10 – different albums of her photographers’ works and told me to pick the ones I liked the most. I picked the two I liked the most, which were both coincidentally the same photographer, and BOOM. Booked it.
Mae gave me a great deal. I told her we didn’t need an engagement session, so she threw the engagement value into both extra hours for the wedding AND into two free 11×14 portraits. She asked me specific questions about the kind of photographer I wanted – photojournalistic, posed, independent, candid – and the style of our wedding. She wrote everything down, double checked it with me to make sure it was accurate, and booked me with our fantastic photographer Craig.
If you go to Aava, ask for Craig. He is an INCREDIBLY funny, amiable, creative, intuitive photographer. We could not have liked him more. He also, most importantly, listened to every request we had of him – we had not a single diagonal picture. Huzzah!
Moving on. We wanted the very bare minimum editing done on our photos – no problem. We wanted to pay half our bill before the wedding and the other half when we received our photos. Even though it wasn’t in our contract, Mae agreed to it. We wanted our photos back quickly – 6−8 weeks was plenty fast for us! In all, they were great and communicative.
Here were the PROBLEMS:
One of my bridesmaid’s had her head cut off in a photo. No one noticed this? Thankfully, Travis (the manager) sent me a free 11×14 version of the problem photo, fixed. Thanks, Travis.
We received duplicates of a couple pictures, and one photo (of me and my bridesmaids) was completely forgotten. Not cool.
Travis was very informal. That might not be a problem for some people, but for me, I like to work with people who don’t use abbrevs in their emails, you know?
Gist of it: I’d recommend them. Especially if you’re on a budget. Specifically, though, I’d recommend Craig. This studio is unlike most others in their desire to accomodate their customers; even if they mess up (which everyone will at some point), they bend over backwards to fix the mistake AND give you extras. That speaks highly of them.

I’m torn on how to rate this business. Our wedding photos turned out very well. Nick did a fantastic job and he was an absolute pleasure to work with. Our 1300+ photos were a great representation of the day.
The way this place works is a little weird. They have several photographers on staff and unless you know of one to request, you will have one randomly assigned. Our photographer for our engagement session was not that awesome. His poses were unoriginal. It was just, «Look at me, look at each other, kiss, now look back at me.» he kept the photos for quite some time because he was «working on them» but when we received them it was evident that little to no editing had been done. Lucky for us my husband has a degree in graphic design and is quite skilled in photography and Photoshop. A gal my husband worked with had used AAVA for her wedding and had Nick for her photographer. We were able to request that the engagement session guy not be our wedding photographer and instead have Nick work with us. Thank goodness!
The five stars are for Nick and not so much for the business. It’s a great option if you’re on a tight budget but in my opinion I would spend more money on a photographer that you can get to know personally before your special day. I think your photos will be that much more meaningful.

Please save yourself the headache and avoid Aava! I picked them because of the price and the «value.» When we first met in they seemed great and we signed the contract. Then things changed. First of all, we were told we got free engagement pics. Nope. They took the pics then tried to charge us $ 100 for the disc. So about a month before the wedding we met with our photographer and he seemed nice. We told him what we wanted and were feeling better. Then Mae (who was ALWAYS rude) called me about two weeks and said she had to change our photographer. so we met the new photographer and again tried to keep a positive attitude despite the unnecessary stress during this already stressful time. Then again, 2 DAYS before our wedding Mae called me and said that our photographer hurt his knee and would be unable to shoot our wedding. When I was obviously upset she told me «we should happy everyone is ok. it could be worse.» Not exactly the thing to tell a bride 2 days before her wedding. So the day before our wedding we were meeting with our new photographer and making sure we would get what we want out of the shots on our wedding day. The photographers we met were really nice but working with Mae was a nightmare. She was disrespectful and very aggressive. I would avoid AAVA. I wish someone would have told me :(

Almost one year later, looking at other people’s wedding pictures still upsets me, because I think about all the pictures I don’t have from my own wedding. My photographer from AAVA did a great job with the set bridal party photo shoot, but every other portion of the 10-​hours we had the photographer — preparation, ceremony, family pictures, reception — was so disappointing. I think the issue is that you get what you pay for. I had an elaborate wedding with a big family and lots of guests — I should have shelled out more than the $ 1,400 or so we paid AAVA to get a qualified photographer. For an intimate ceremony, maybe they would be fine. To AAVA’s credit, they did refund me $ 200 for the extra hours we hired the photographer, but what is that in light of not having a single picture with my mother or even one picture of our faces during the ceremony? Below is the email I wrote to the studio in response to voicemail/​phone tag to document all the trouble we had.
«I understand that Tim has had the experience before that priests did not want him up near the altar taking pictures, but he shouldn’t make the assumption that this is the case in all churches. He should have asked. We only have pictures of the backs of our heads from the ceremony. This is one issue in addition to the other probems we had.
1) Tim was 15 minutes late (not the worst mistake, but in light of all the other issues, it’s upsetting)
2) He did not follow the timeline I gave him and showed up to my parents’ house an hour late, meaning I have very few pictures of myself getting ready, fewer casual pictures with my bridesmaids, and very few overall with my family. I actually have not one single picture of myself with my mom. NOT ONE.
3) All of the photos when we are kneeling during the blessing ceremonyat my parents’ house – where Tim had free reign to walk where he wanted – are also of the backs of our heads
4) Because he did not go to the front of the church, I have almost none of the pictures I listed in the shot list I submitted for the ceremony.
5) I have far too few pictures of the guests at the wedding, given that there was 2.5 hours between the start of the reception and dancing. Where was he all that time?
6) Tim took the bare minimum number of pictures (700) to satisfy the basic contract, even though we hired him for two extra hours (with the ratio of about 100 pictures per hour, we should have had at least 900 images).
I love the pictures we took between the ceremony and the reception with the bridal party, but I am also very disappointed by the pictures taken at the ceremony and the reception. I am so sad that I have so few pictures with my parents because Tim did not follow the timeline I gave him. I wanted to drop the whole issue because I am not the fighting type, but every time I think about the pictures I don’t have, I get so upset. These are not pictures we can recreate, so we will never have them.»