Can you believe that? FOUR months and nothing, not even our proofs. I’ve been hoping to resolve this for a few weeks now, but sadly it looks like it’s finally gotten to me. What makes it worse is that we had finally gotten a hopeful response last week, but then THAT failed as well.

Is it that hard to ask for something you’ve paid for a YEAR in advance?

Seriously, we’re not talking about anything genius here. They’re pictures. You take them, develop them, and then give them to the exuberant bride or groom. Here’s the dilly so far:

• Mid-June: Back from our honeymoon, we ask how long it may take. His response? 6-8 weeks.
• Mid-August: “It’s taken a bit longer to develop the black & white images. A cple more weeks go go” First off, i’m fairly certain it doesn’t take that much longer (if at all) to develop B&W over color, and ESPECIALLY not for the 4×5 proofs! I asked my sister who works for a photographer doing weddings herself, and they didn’t buy it.
• Early Sep: “I’ll call you this week so we can meet up and go over it all”. Nothing that week. nor the next. nor the next.

*This is the point at which i jump in and start getting irrated. The guy is an old high school friend of the Mrs., so we cut him some slack thinking all would be dandy. A couple of weeks ago she was done with him, so i got to play bad cop ;) which is perfectly fine as i get it all day long @ work anyways being a customer service manager.

• Sep 11th – I call and leave a calm but important message on his cell phone. no response.
• Sep 13th – Text him “What’s the deal, bro?” hoping to get anything at all back. nothing.
• Sep 16th – The Mrs. calls him and leaves a message. nothing again.
• Sep 18th – The Mrs. emails him:
  

  “D-head (edited),

  What’s going on? You haven’t returned our phone calls/voicemails to you and I haven’t heard from you since Sept.1 when you indicated you’d be calling me that week.

  We’d really just like to see our proofs. I’ve been asking for them for months now and have received numerous indications from you that they would be forthcoming, but we have still not received them.

  The only thing we’ve seen at all so far has been a few pictures on Facebook. Though we enjoyed seeing those, we waited until 3 months after our wedding to catch a glimpse of 13 pictures, whereas the other wedding you posted had taken place one day prior and they had 3 times as many pictures up. Clearly, we are not a priority for you right now but this is becoming increasingly frustrating–and disappointing. Our wedding pictures are important to us and we’d really like to see how they turned out.

  I would really appreciate the courtesy of receiving some communication from you as to what’s going on regarding our proofs, and when we can expect to receive them. We’re approaching 4 months from our wedding date at this point.

  Mrs. Budgetsaresexy (edited)”

• Sep 25th – Success! An email into Facebook AND gmail. AWESOME! And as much as i’d LOVE to post his sad story of a response, there’s too many details that would give up who it is :( I did think about it though ;) He did, however, say he’ll be in town for a few days (he said he moved), and will stop by early Sunday morning to review it together.
• Sep 28th, Sunday – No show. We call him at 1pm and he calls back, clearly aggitated, stating he’ll drop it off during the day, even if we’re not at home. And surprise, surprise, he didn’t.
• Sep 28th, evening – The mrs. leaves a voicemail asking for an update. nothing. i text him a “still stopping by?” text as well, but nothing again.
• Sep 29th, evening – I repeatedly try calling him from 7pm-10pm but phone appears turned off – i didn’t leave a message…and that’s where we are today.
• UPDATE: Sep 30th, morning – The Mrs. emails him again,
  

  “D-head (edited),

  Your phone has either been not working or turned off for the last 2 days, and again, we’ve left a number a messages. You never showed up on Sunday. Can we please get a status update on the proofs???”

• UPDATE: Sep 30th, evening – I call him every hour, on the hour, for 4 hours straight. just rings and rings and then hits vmail (better than just going straigth there i suppose). I leave one message stating that i basically just want him to drop them off before leaving town, and that i can care less about the reasoning behind it. I also say a call/email/text/facebook/myspace message or whatever is fine. Just make contact.
• UPDATE: Oct 1st, morning – Nothing yet…will wait until tomorrow, and then it’s on.
• UPDATE: Oct 1st, afternoon – He emailed us back! but it’s not good…

So, now not only has he pissed us off for months on end, but he has crushed our remaining hope of getting this resolved asap. And keep in mind, after getting these proofs, we STILL have to order the freakin’ pictures from him!! arghhhhhhhh…what a dick. (sorry, but it’s called for here.)

I think the worst of it all, though, is that i’m starting to wonder if something’s just wrong with the pics? Like, perhaps they came out horribly? Or maybe his team accidently erased them or something? I’m sure they were all digital, so who knows what’s possible.

Whew, that felt good! Thanks for listening, and/or skimming ;) All in all it’s not the worst thing going on these days (bailout anyone?), but it certainly is at the top of my $hit list. And if we never get them? Well, at least we’ve got plenty of other pics from our friends and family that portray the beautiful day! We’re certainly not going to let it “ruin” the wedding.

I’ll keep ya posted…