DThree Productions

How we met D Three — I met the wife and husband who own DThree Productions at a bridal brunch in San Diego. Stefanie Moriarty is the wife and does the majority of the client relations and her husband Daniel Moriarty does the filming and productions. They currently go by the name DThree Productions in San Diego but are transitioning to a new company name called Anthology Films. I attended a bridal brunch where there were several other vendors there. The only vendor I did not officially have locked up at the time was a videographer. My mom was with me and we were assigned to sit right next to Stefanie. She was very polite and sweet right off the bat. At the end of the brunch they did a raffle and we had ironically won a love story or save the date film with DThree. We were so excited at the time and were really looking forward to working with them and potentially considering them for our wedding as well. After meeting with them again in OC to talk about next steps we decided we wanted them to also do our wedding video.
We felt pressured — We received the contract and had very little time to review it before Stefanie said that she had another bride inquire about my same wedding date. My fiancé signed it and sent it back immediately to lock up our date as we felt pressured and that we were going to lose the opportunity if we didn’t act quickly. A few hours later after further reviewing the contract I had some concerns about the «model release» portion of the contract. So, I immediately crossed out that section and emailed her a revised contract asking that she please void the first one and use the new one I sent over instead. Her and her husband had not signed or solidified anything so it was not binding yet. She ignored my request and signed and sent back the first copy of the contract in which I specifically asked them not to use. I had paid a $ 1000 deposit thinking it was a small request that would be resolved and little did I know that is where things would start to go downhill.
Our simple request turned into a HUGE RED FLAG — Because of the concerns I had with the «model release» and the fact that they sent back the wrong contract (the one I asked them to void) I had my wedding planner step in and try to help. Both my planner and I asked to jump on a call to sort these concerns out as they were minor and could be discussed in a simple phone conversation, however Stefanie & Daniel ignored our requests and instead sent emails to us saying that they prefer to do all communications via email for documentation purposes and in addition they are very busy with other projects which causes them to work late and therefore are not able to accommodate our requests for a phone call.
RED FLAG gets worse — When crossing out the «model release» section of the agreement, I had asked to reserve the right to review and approve the finished product before they released it publicly online. I did not think this would be a big deal as most cinematographers I know would never want to market something their client was not happy with. Stefanie told me in an email that if I was concerned about keeping my wedding video private that I should ask all of my wedding guests to limit their cell phone usage and not take any videos as they could be released onto social media… She completely misinterpreted what I was asking for and became very aggressive.
The emails from Stefanie progressively got worse stating that they cannot work with anyone who does not agree to a model release. This was another big red flag as they were giving so much push back in regards to having full rights to market my video whether I liked it or not. From there, she still did not make any further efforts to better communicate with us. Between my planner and myself we had asked her 3 times for a phone conversation and even said we would take calls late at night or step out at work to make ourselves available at any time that was convenient for her. Our wedding was is in May and at no time did she mention that during the whole time from contracting up to our wedding month, they would be unavailable and «out of the country».
Walked away & they kept our deposit — Needless to say, we were uncomfortable moving forward with a company that does not put their clients first and does not make more of an effort to speak with a paying customer when they are asking to talk about an important matter involving their contract. Since they provided no services for us we asked for our $ 1000 deposit back but they brushed us off stating it was non-​returnable as stated in the contract. It is very sad as I don’t know how many other couples they have done this too. I would definitely be cautious with this company as they seem very nice and accommodating at first but we learned that was just a front to get your money.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions as I would be happy to go into more detail. I don’t want to see someone else have to go through what we did.