A Florida wedding photographer who won The Knot's Best of Weddings award three years in a row is now the subject of a local television station's investigation after multiple couples have come forward claiming they paid thousands of dollars for footage and photos that were never delivered.
SNi Photography, owned by Nick Seago, has been the subject of an investigation by an Orlando television station after several couples have come forward saying they've waited over a year for photos and videos that were supposed to delivered about a month after the wedding, leaving one bride to use a photo taken by her father on his phone as the centerpiece of her living room instead.
One bride detailed how she and her husband signed a contract for around $3,000 that included both photo and video services with delivery in six to eight weeks. However, 10 months after wedding, they are still without any video and have been unable to reach Seago. Other couples have detailed receiving small amounts of pictures or unusable video.
Seago was sued last year and ordered to pay over $3,000 to another bride, but she says he has never paid, while his company has also accumulated numerous complaints with the Better Business Bureau along with an F rating.
While this sort of story isn't unheard of, what's surprising is that Seago's company won the "Best of Weddings" award on The Knot in 2016, 2017, and 2018, despite the first review detailing these issues appearing in May of 2018. At least one of the brides named in the investigation specified that she chose Seago specifically because of his profile on The Knot. The Knot indicates that the award is given by analyzing user reviews, though it's not clear if they will remove past awards, especially given the now multiple negative reviews with similar stories. Hopefully, the couples will eventually get the memories of their special days.
Many years ago I often subcontracted to shoot video on S-VHS or VHS when "video weddings" were just becoming a thing. One very decent man and videographer...and another guy. I didn't know the other guy well but he paid promptly. At first. Then slowly, then stopped taking my calls. Then skipped town leaving several of us unpaid, but worse, undelivered raw footage of an unknown number of weddings. I cannot imagine how that hurt the young couples he cheated.
Um.... $3,000 for photo and video coverage? This might be the cheapest multi media wedding coverage that I know of. Yes he should honor his commitments as well. Just saying, he must not value his time very much if that is what he is charging.
'Award winning' means nothing at all, amazed it's still used as a reference for anything.
Exactly. Most countries have their national photography awards group where you can enter images in different categories like wedding photography or commercial etc for its annual awards ceremony. People win gold, silver or bronze etc and then go on to state they are an "award winning photographer" on their website.
The trouble is that those groups become a bit like a family with the same people entering and winning every year. It is definitely not a representation of the industry in that country. The awards go to really good work but it does not mean that this or that photographer is better or more qualified than others who simply have no interest in entering for the awards.
The problem is that customers don't know that. They see awards given out by The Knot on their own website and think they lend credibility.
That's true, bit I also think incidents like this really illustrate why word-of-mouth, even in the modern era, is still a much better way to find someone competent.
Awards and the bodies that award them are often little more than rackets. It's like photo competitions where you can enter your images but then get hustled into buying a book or a print or some other shit you didn't want.
I don't do weddings but I hope The Knot does some investigating (e.g., BBB) before doling out awards.
Award-winning might mean "does weird stuff that artistes like."
The Knot/ Wedding Wire etc all offer "Best Of" awards solely based on if you hit a quota of quality level ratings. It's not even a huge number that you need to surpass. If I'm remembering right it's only like 10-12 reviews in a single year. I've seen some terrible work get a "Best Of" badge simply because the photographer offers cheap work and incentivizes clients to give them reviews.
It's sad because end clients don't know any better and their wedding day coverage ends up being terrible.