Photog DRAMA! (longest post ever)

I'm baaaaaack! Our vacation was awesome. It was soooo relaxing, and the island was so empty compared to the way it is during the rest of the Summer. Empty as it was, it was no surprise to find a sports bar filled with Cats fans for the UK vs. Louisville game. What can I say... we roll deep.

Anyway, the week did have one slight hiccup. On Wednesday, before we left, I received a call from the photographer that we had scheduled to do our pictures. This photographer is Shelley Hutchinson. Please keep in mind that we made this appointment in JUNE. Well, she called to tell me that her grandmother had passed away, and wanted to reschedule the pictures for 9:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. Obviously, I had no problem with this. I gladly agreed to change around some of our plans, and meet her at Folly Field Beach at 9:00 a.m. for the first of 3 different locations that we would be using. So, we forego any Saturday night plans that we may have had, and got up at 7:00 on Sunday morning to get ready. We arrived at Folly Field Beach at about 8:55. We waited around until about 9:15 with no sign of Shelley, and so I called her cell phone. I left her a message saying that I wasn't sure exactly where to meet her and asked her to give me a call back. So, we sat in our car (so as not to get sweaty) and waited... and waited... and waited until 9:45 when I decided to call her again. Still, no answer. I left another message saying that we did not know where she was, didn't know what to do, etc. We sat until 10:00 until we decided that she was obviously a no-show and decided to go back to the condo. As we are pulling out of the parking lot, she calls back. She begins to tell me that she was in a terrible car accident and just got out of the emergency room. Ironic timing, wouldn't you say? She tells me that they were driving back from the (supposed) funeral on Saturday night and got into a bad car accident and that she didn't have her cell phone until she got home. The problem with that story is that she called me from her cell phone from whatever city this funeral was in, where she was staying for a few days. So somehow her cell phone snuck back to her house and stayed there during the rest of her trip and drive home after the funeral. Dont'cha hate it when that happens? Puhlease. She apologized and said "I hope you understand, I've had a really bad week." Really bad week? I just drove 11 hours, spent way too much time money & hours obsessed over our outfits only to have you feed me some BS about a car wreck? Normally, this is where I would have lost my sh*t. I am always up for giving a good tongue lashing, and boy did she deserve one. But, something inside me told me that she just wasn't worth my anger or stress, because karma will do the work for me. So I continued to say "uh huh" as I had the rest of the conversation. She then says to me "would you maybe want to reschedule for later tonight?" HA! Seriously? I should have said yes, just so she could call me later to tell me that her husband had gone into labor or something. Instead, we just drove back to the condo, making her ears burn along the way, trying to figure out what we were going to do now. It was the Sunday before Labor Day, so obviously we weren't going to have too many options. We got back to the condo and began scouring the internet and phone book, calling anyone and everyone just trying to get someone to answer and tell us they would take our pictures. No one answered. Feeling a little discouraged, I decided to check my email. Lo and behold, the first message in my inbox was from another photographer that I had contacted back in June, Eva and Jan from Island Photo Place. The message said that they wanted to "re-confirm our photography session for Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m." Umm...what? It took a little re-reading through my Gmail conversations for me to figure out that these were the photographers that I had originally wanted but never got a solid confirmation from them, although they thought they had sent me one. Obviously, I replied to them with a resounding YES! I spoke with them the next day on the phone, and we made plans for them to come to us. That's the way they do business, and it was pretty refreshing to hear after the first nightmare. They came to our doorstep precisely at 6:45 as they had promised, walked down to the beach with us, and took us to 3 or 4 different spots for pictures. They were amazing, and SO professional. They took a ton of pictures, had great shot ideas and knew exactly what we wanted. I cannot WAIT to see our proofs. They were ready the next morning, but we had to leave town, so they are mailing them to us, for free. I'm pretty sure that Ms. Hutchinson could take a lesson in professionalism from these two.

If you actually read that entire saga, bless you. Give yourself a pat on the back. I hope that this tag-heavy post will warn others in the Hilton Head area about the unprofessionalism and sheer BS that you will receive from Shelley Hutchinson. I also hope that it will encourage choosing Eva & Jan if you EVER take pictures around Hilton Head.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, I will definitely post pictures as soon as I have them.