Wedding Bug

My daughter hired
to provide photography and DJ services for her April 9^th, 2016 wedding in San Diego. I would have paid double knowing then what I know now.
In my opinion, this must have been the first gig for the DJ assigned to her wedding, Evan «DJ La Jolla». Weddingbug.com’s website states they only use «certified» DJs which have an average of 300 weddings and 6+ years experience. What certification? Masters of music? Hogwash!!!
My daughter was notified with the DJ and Photographer’s names about two weeks prior to the event spoke. She wasn’t able to get in contact with the DJ until about the day before the wedding! She spoke to him on the phone about specific songs and timing. That was all for not as he «forgot» songs and didn’t follow the timing (stopping a song at a certain time.) He only had a wired mic with a short cord so you had to stand behind his ugly table for speeches. He allowed long pauses (silent gaps) between songs and played the wrong songs at times. His announcements were quite and some guests missed things because they couldn’t here the announcement. There often was no music for things like the bouquet or garter toss.
Several guests commented on how bad the DJ was, but the most telling comes from the venue’s event coordinator. She states «…he was one of the hardest DJ’s I have ever worked with… and he had no idea what he was doing… He truly didn’t know how to do his job… Right before the mother son dance, he realized ‘Oh I don’t have a song for that either.’»
He realized that right before the dance? I’ve talked with several DJs since that event and EVERY ONE has a checklist that is reviewed and completed prior to the event. Yeah, that’s what an experienced DJ SHOULD do.
My daughter made some timing and setup changes at least a week before the event, but those changes were never reflected in the on-​line invoice even weeks after the wedding. I had to call to get a refund for a service we didn’t use. That’s not on the DJ but on the
company to fix.
I spoke with a supervisor about all of the issues and even though we have phone calls, emails, and statements from folks documenting the issues. I’ve asked for a full refund of the DJ fees but have yet to get ANY resolution.
We also used the photography services. The two photographers were pleasant and at the day of the event seemed to be doing a fine job. After seeing the pictures, I think they did «OK». Many of the photographs however do not show the full gown or have hair fly-​away or veil issues that the photographer should have seen. Weddingbug.com’s site to view the pictures was a complete pain, so I wrote a small script which downloaded all of them to my computer without having to click, view, save each picture.
In my opinion, I would strongly advise AGAINST using
for your events. Sure, their price is cheap, but you’re getting a very cheap service for that price. You cannot be sure of the quality you’re getting and the company doesn’t seem to interested in making sure you’re satisfied with their service.

I wish I could leave 2 separate reviews as I had 2 services through wedding bug but seeing as I was not too pleased with either service, I’ll just review the DJ. To start, the pricing was amazing seeing as DJ and Photography services are crazy expensive in San Diego. That being said, it would have been a better idea to spend the extra money with another company.
Our DJ was absolutely HORRIBLE! (DJ La Jolla). First off, I didn’t get to meet with his before the wedding and I couldn’t contact him either as Wedding Bug sends you the DJ and Photographer info 1 – 2 wks before the wedding. He called me the day before the wedding to go over the pronunciation of the wedding party names, and to review the song lists. The Wedding Bug site lets you document the songs you want played for each event i.e. 1^st dance, father/​daughter, cake cutting, etc. Lets go over everything he did wrong:
1. Did not play the correct processional music.
2. Did not cut our first dance song at 2:22 as requested when we spoke over the phone and I do remember being very specific about that time. He informed me that it would be no problem and yet the song was not cut which was a big deal as we had a dance that we preformed.
3. Did not play the correct Mother/​Son song (and according to our Wedding Coordinator, he informed her that he «forgot» what song to play). He ended up playing a song by a band that my husband cannot stand!
4. I feel that there were unnecessary long delays between songs; it would have been a nicer touch had he blended/​faded the ending of a song with the beginning of the next so that there were no long pauses between songs.
5. There were several occasions where there was NO music playing (ie between speeches-​fairly awkward for the guest to walk to the front in complete silence, when announcing dances, and when announcing events like the bouquet toss, garter toss, and cake cutting). It would have been nice to have had soft music that matched the type of music we had playing at our wedding instead of silence.
6. When we spoke before the wedding he informed me that he would contact my wedding coordinator and according to her he never did. I feel that things may have gone much smoother with his performance had the two of them spoke.
7. The DJ set up was so ugly (see the picture).
After the wedding he sent me an email explaining a few thing as several of our guests complained. There was a mix up on the times of the services; our work order shows 5:30 — 10:30 and he packed up at 10… while we and the guests were outside for our grand exit. His response in his email to me about packing up early was: «there really wasn’t a reason to continue to celebrating anyways (in my opinion)».
He also complained that my parents withheld gratuity from him… really my father had every intention of providing gratuity but did not get a chance and I’m glad he didn’t provide gratuity!
He also tried telling my father in an email that he and I never discussed the sings to play. Completely false! Not only did we talk about it on the phone THE DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING but I also had it all documented on the Wedding Bug website which he had access to.
We tried getting our money back since he didn’t do half of his job; we have yet to be successful.

A horrible middle-​man between you and your excellent photographer.
First things first — Our photographer was absolutely excellent. She was professional, timely, creative, and uploaded her shots quickly. We got exactly what we wanted from her, she was swift and efficient, moving through our event like a ninja, striking in perfect moments of beauty. So, our result was 5-​star quality.
However,
Customer support is abysmal. Their website requires Internet Explorer, the first sign that they’re not really for internet-​savvy people.
Contact with them had the longest delays of all our vendors.
Our interview with our photographer was contractually obligated to be two weeks prior to the event. Despite this, our contact with wedding bug prior to the 14-​day mark was met with an explanation of «sometime within the two weeks prior» and that act of scheduling the interview would start at the two week mark. They also claimed that the time in the contract was one week until it was pointed out to them our contract explicitly stated otherwise, at which point they conceded the fact.
As their only job is to connect people that have a need and offer a service, they provide little value other than their ability to connect the right people. And in this aspect, they knocked it out of the park. We got an amazing photographer that shared our vision and made our day. But the whole time leading up to the event we were biting our nails and stressing out. We felt completely cut off from the process, and everything was out of our hands until the very end when it was a raging success.
Plus, after the fact their Premium Collection Service involves them photoshopping (36 shots, chosen by you), and you can leave comments on what you want. As far as we can tell, they ignored our one suggestion (we wanted one shot to have only a leaf colored and the rest in B&W) and just did some basic color correction on all the shots. Then the website wouldn’t work and we needed to ask for help. So they sent the same exact link and told us to click it again, and it still didn’t work. Then after we sent a snarky email they actually read our first email and properly provided a link to our premium shots. But not before sending 2 extra CDs of our complete 300+ shot collection as a knee-​jerk reaction to what they thought was a general «we didn’t get our pictures» cry for help.
So Wedding Bug is like this roulette wheel, where you spin the wheel six months in advance, and you put your money on 26, and the croupier is distracted by other things and you feel a little unsure, but then a few months go by and then you put more money on 26, and then at the last moment you put the rest of your money on 26, and the croupier calls NO MORE BETS. You bit your nails for a few seconds and then it comes up 26. You win. Then he pushes most of your money to you and looks away, then he takes like a solid two weeks to push the full balance of the money to you.
Everything was perfect in the end, but it seriously did not have to be this tense. Perfect Photographer, perfect pictures, quickly get most of the pictures… but darn if they didn’t keep the whole process way too suspenseful for our taste.

I reached out to Wedding Bug to get a wedding photography quote and example photos from a photographer in my area. It seemed like it would be a great deal! Well, I heard back from them without examples, but they did ask me a series of questions. I thought, «Great, at least they want to know what I’m looking for». I answered all of their questions within a few hours and emailed them back. I waited several weeks for a response, no answer. I talked with other photographers, and they were booking up fast. I wound up booking one because I was afraid to lose out on one of the most important aspects of the day, the only one that really lasts besides memories. It would have been fine, except then weeks later, Angie emails me again asking for follow up. I told her I did email her weeks ago, never heard back. She tells me she never heard back from me. She is the professional in this instance, and I was the only one who was able to provide proof of communication.
I still continue to get emails from Wedding Bug asking Alexis how her wedding plans are coming. My name is not Alexis.

Do not use #weddingbug !!! There service is a joke and their explanation is that everyone’s opinion of quality is different.
I have to share how absolutely disgusted I am with the service and quality from wedding bug. I have held off on this feedback until I received my actual prints because I was assured I would be happy!!!
I hired them for my wedding last July (2014) and it has been nothing but stress and tears. My initial issue was the rude and unprofessional photographer and videographer that were sent to my wedding. The videographer cursed and spat at sister and argued with each other mid ceremony on top of other non professional issues. I was mortified and was in tears not for the joy I was supposed to experience exchanging vows, but from the sheer humiliation I felt as guests laughed and whispered among each other over the incident.
I did call to complain and experienced so much back and forth that my head was turning. I was assured this was an isolated issue and was given a $ 300 refund to compensate me for the trouble. I was also told this would be my only compensation. I was assured the photos would be amazing so i agreed accepted their «sincere appology» and accepted their compensation.
I will honestly say it did take me almost 9 months for me to be able to look through my photos because I literally cried each time I tried to sit and choose photos. I finally choose the 20 photos that were to be printed for me and I received them today. I was so excited until I opened the package. This is a joke is all i have to say. What professional photographer would consider what is sent to me amazing! Some of the photos I chose were cropped and the results were disgusting! They look like we are all stretched out longways! Really!!!
I chose 100 photos for my album and the proof that was sent to me was missing photos I choose and they simply added photos I know I didn’t choose.
I’ve emailed and asked how we can correct it and was told I needed to add in the comments which photos were to be removed and add the photo number of what I wanted in place. Seems simple enough right… well how am I supposed to pick numbers when I don’t know them. So I received an email back with a list of numbers of the photos that were used. now since so many were completely wrong no matter how I change it the layout just won’t look right. The website itself is also not user friendly. Shutterfly has an easier process for creating albums. It has been a week and I still haven’t heard back from anyone on how this can be fixed.
I just want to start over! Like completely over and choose another vendor who actually cares and treats a wedding like a special event that matters! The memories I have are forever tarnished. Each time I look at these photos I will remember this horrific experience. If I can save even one couple from making the same mistake I made or from experiencing what I have endured with this review then maybe my sadness and discontent may be worth it.
I could have done a better job taking photos with my cell phone and printing them in CVS! DO NOT CHOOSE WEDDING BUG FOR ANYTHING!
*I gave 1 stars for 1 of the 3 photograpers, Luis, that did do an amazing job! His were the only photos I was happy with. Sad part is he wasn’t my main photographer so was he was there for a limited amount of time.

If I could give negative stars — I would.
My husband and I used Wedding Bug Houston for our wedding on 10÷4÷2014. Our photographer, John, was TWO HOURS late. My ceremony had to start 30 minutes late because I didn’t have a photographer there.
I didn’t get any «prep» pictures. NONE.
John was an absolute jerk after he arrived. We had to ASK him to take certain pictures. He couldn’t handle taking group pictures. He was easily irritated and would disappear for periods of time. I actually asked him to leave 30 minutes early because he wasn’t doing anything — just standing around. He had the nerve to then say «I was an hour late so I am supposed to stay an extra hour…» First of all, guests had began to leave so I didn’t need him there, and he wasn’t an hour late — he was TWO hours late.
Then, I get my pictures… They are absolutely horrible. AWFUL. There are 519 total. 29 of them are of the exact same flower centerpiece. 10 are of a passing boat (our wedding was on the water). 40 are of me walking down the isle (I only walked for 45 seconds). 19 are of my cake. 9 are completely unusable because leaves are covering my husband and I’s faces. 23 are of our first dance. 26 of the father/​daughter dance. 17 of the mother/​son dance. I have 60 pictures of guests, most of which are duplicates. We took very, very few bridal party pictures, but they didn’t send me ANY of the groomsmen (he didn’t recall taking them — yet he was standing there when they lined up). All-​in-​all, I would say I got MAYBE 40 «decent» pictures. There isn’t even 1 picture that «wowed» me.
The manager & VP I spoke to stood behind his photographer, said John had admitted his mistakes… But that he didn’t really see anything wrong with the pictures other than maybe a couple duplicates. The company offered me a partial refund for the hours the photographer wasn’t there and a photo album… I can’t even find enough pictures to make the album.
I am completely and 100% disappointed in my experience.
John ruined my wedding day and now has ruined my memories.
This company only cares about getting you in, they will NOT stand behind their work.
Find someone else.

I used Wedding Bug for my wedding photography this past December. I chose the eight hour package for full coverage of the day, and overall, the photos were mediocre.
While this option is considerably cheaper than hiring a «real» photographer, $ 960 is nothing to sneeze at, and I was basically disappointed with the quality and volume of pictures. I incorrectly assumed there would be enough photos to weed through and get a few nice ones. In the days prior to digital, I can understand why a photographer would have to be frugal, as film processing was expensive. But everything is digital now; I’m not a pro, but the SD card in my camera can hold almost 3,000 high-​res photos. When I bust it out, I take piles and piles of photos and usually end up with quite a few that are amazing. After eight hours of Things To Take Pictures Of + «Professional» Photographer, I was really bummed to take away only 465 photos, many of them laughably bad. Some of them had people blinking. Some were blurry. MANY of the photos have the top of someone’s head or arm or elbow or hand cropped out. Of the things photographers should do at a bare minimum, I thought lining people up in the shot and not being blurry were pretty basic.
I also took their «style quiz,» (just retook it now to confirm my tastes) and received photojournalistic/​candid, with a strong aversion to romantic/​traditional poses. The photographer I was assigned was «romantic-​style.» I don’t know what the point of the quiz even was; they just disregard it and assign you whoever is available. I almost contacted them when I received the details of my photographer, but again, I did a lot of assuming with this company, and made the mistake of trusting that the photographer would be versatile.
I have more gripes, basically nit-​picky things, so I’ll just leave it that.
End on a good note: The photographer was prompt and very friendly, I had no problems with payment, and the customer service was fine. There are also several shots that are good; a friend of mine is a photographer and is touching them up in Photoshop as best she can, so the entire day wasn’t a complete loss.
TL;DR
Don’t expect greatness. If you want cookie-​cutter wedding photos that you’ve seen dozens of times, and you’re on a very strict budget, this will get the job done. But if you can spring the extra cash for a local photographer who takes pride in their work, skip these guys and do that instead.

I am very disappointed with my photos and also with the customer service I have received. I have contacted the company several times because I was told my pictures would be online within two weeks of my wedding and they were not. I was told last week my pictures were uploaded only to find that the website was down for the next five days. As the website is finally working again I am still unable to view any of my photos online. It has now been more than 5 weeks since my wedding! I also called the customer service line two weeks ago to discuss the fact that both of my photographers were an hour late to my wedding and was told I would receive a call back from a manager named Vince later in the day. I still have not received a call from him!!! Those are two hours that I have already paid for and received nothing! I held out hope that at least I would be happy with my pictures but when I received the photo CD yesterday I lost all hope. My photographers did not get many of the important shots during the ceremony I was sure they would. The day of the wedding they seemed to have no idea what I wanted and didn’t seem to have ever seen the photo checklist that I filled out through the company. The photos that I received are not good quality and I did not get many important pictures that I specifically asked for. One of the only reasons I decided to hire two photographers instead of one was to get a picture of my Husbands face as I walked down the aisle as well as a picture of me walking down the aisle. There was not a single shot of him during my entire walk down the aisle and in every shot of me walking down the aisle the second photographer and videographer are in the background because they were standing directly in front of the aisle. We actually had to stop and wait for them to move before we could get all the way down. After the ceremony my Husband told me he couldn’t even see me because of where they were standing. You would think with being so intrusive they would at least get good photographs but no! Very disappointed. Horrible customer service!

Minimal Customer Service, Good Results
We hired our wedding photographer and DJ through Wedding Bug.
I contracted their services six months before the wedding, paying my deposit via credit card.
I had one scheduled call with my wedding coordinator, and we never connected over the phone. She left a voicemail on my office number, but I was working from home. I left her voicemail… That said, she did answer questions within a day or so via email.
However, I started to get nervous when the balance on our contract came due 30 days before our wedding, and I couldn’t use a credit card, as I had for my deposit. I HATE prepaying for anything with a check, because there’s no recourse if you’re not happy.
I shared my concerns about the need to pay by check, including how it felt a bit bait-​and-​switch since they accept credit cards for deposits, with my wedding representative, and asked that she convey them to Wedding Bug management. And then I mailed my check. By that point, I felt it was too late to start looking for another vendor for a June wedding.
The photographer and DJ got in touch with me five days before our wedding AFTER I nudged my wedding representative about our lack of contact. Those two phone calls revealed that the information I’d submitted via the Wedding Bug website had not been fully transmitted. Some of our song selections made it through, but not all; our list of desired photo shots wasn’t clear. I recreated and emailed the song list to the DJ, and made a printout of our must-​have photos for the photographer.
On the plus side, the DJ did a great job at our ceremony. He did an excellent with the cocktail-​to-​dance music transitions, and was very pleasant to deal with.
The photographer took some really nice shots, and we received a link to an online «preview» album of our photos within 10 days, and the DVD by mail about three weeks after the wedding.
I’m very pleased with our results. The minimal customer service, and the check payment requirement, keep me from giving the service 5 stars.

Terrible customer service. Very slow to respond to concerns. Worst part is they ruined our wedding video. Angles absolutely terrible, we had professionals performing and the videographer focused on their backs! He also forgot to turn the light on, so you cannot see anything. The bride and groom are hardly in the video. The videographer they chose seemed to significantly lack experience and not understand the importance of videography for a WEDDING.
Spoke with the director who said all she can offer is editing– really no difference and did not follow through on her promise of editing we discussed. It took a lot of phone calls and emails to get very little done. I absolutely do not recommend this company and hope that no bride choses to risk their videography with this company.

We had booked Wedding Bug and placed a deposit for a photography package. A little under five months prior to the wedding date, we were concerned that we did not receive any information about our photographer or the opportunity to see their work. Because of the negative reviews outside Wedding Bug’s website, we decided to reach out to our assigned wedding advisor with our concerns, but never received a response. Not until multiple voicemails and emails, did we finally get a hold of a customer service representative (Note: that we had to keep trying as they were not returning any of our messages) and were able to cancel our reservation.
The irony is that our assigned wedding advisor was extremely punctual in sending a confirmation notification that our account had been cancelled.
In addition, we were not able to get back our deposit even though the timeline was before the 30-​day-​prior-​to-​event policy. The cancellation policy is unclear in their contract, and only made our decision not to use Wedding Bug services more valid.
We are very disappointed with how everything turned out, but glad that we figured out an alternative early in our planning process.
Take away: If you want an affordable price and are okay with the unknown and unreliable, then Wedding Bug is the right service for you. Otherwise, turn away. Their prices are DEFINITELY too good to be true!

There aren’t any (good) reviews online of this site apart from what’s on the company website. I’ve looked through The Knot and Wedding Wire and no reviews prove positive. How is it that a company which is 2012 Pick For The Knot does not have positive reviews on same the site that «picked» it?
The reviews were the first thing that made me decide to cancel the service. I was not happy at all with the customer service manner of Lynn. She was very pushy when trying to convince me not to cancel the service.
My issues with Wedding Bug were (which I discussed with Lynn):
1. There are no good reviews online, on The Knot, etc.
Her response: There are a lot of lies spread out there. I want you to know that all the couples we have photographed have been satisfied with our service. We’ve been in business for over 25 years (I’m not sure if she said 25 or 35) and we wouldn’t be around for so long if we do not do a good job. We take pride in our work. Have you read our reviews on the website?
2. There are not enough photographs of each event on the site to show the photographer’s style of capturing an event. There are only about 8 photos of each event. Furthermore, I cannot find any wedding photos outside of your website that can be associated to the events you have covered –no one out there is claiming to have had their wedding photos taken by Wedding Bug.
Her response: From those eight photos, you can gather the photographer’s style. And because we have multiple photographers so each style from each event will be different. Also, it’s a matter of privacy! These couples do not want to have their weddings publicized. It’s a pity that you want to cancel because your wedding date is such a busy one and our rates are so low.
My response: So you’re saying, that of all the hundreds of wedding photographs the company has taken through the years (they have been in business over 25 years), no one out there wants to share their photos (much less show them off as a recommendation).
I did not feel like any of my reservations with the service provided were addressed. WHY aren’t there any good reviews outside of the Wedding Bug website? Is EVERYONE on The Knot, etc. lying then?
And why are the photo selections so limited and miniscule? Maybe, you want to limit bandwidth on the website, but why are the photos so small? I’d rather view four 600×400px photographs than eight or so collaged photos that are 350px and smaller. I am an artist and I work with artists. By Lynn saying that eight photographs is enough to show a photographer’s style, she is undermining their line of work and is clearly misrepresenting the service her company is providing. Furthermore, if you look at the photographer’s page, there are only photos of the photographers available and no bios. Who are these people? None of them look like they’re old enough to have been working as photographers for 25 years. Or maybe it’s just their really great Photoshop skills? Not that I have any issues with that.
All in all, she didn’t justify why they were so good that I shouldn’t cancel the service. And she wasn’t nice about it. If your website isn’t too good of a representation of your service, at least be nice to your prospective clients.