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As most will know, I got married in August and had a bit of a scare when the videographer seemed to disappear off the face of the earth and only got back to us two weeks before the wedding (after several months of emailing).

Little did I know this was the start of the bother.

It took months for us to get even the first cut of the video post-wedding – and this was after a fairy story about having it posted to the wrong address (we checked the address he sent it to, they hadn’t received it). When we got the first cut, we were stunned to find the grainy picture, poor lighting and terrible sound. Now – I understand that a wedding is not going to be a studio but I would expect that we’d be able to, for example, hear the vows or most of the speeches or that the best mans speech wouldn’t be cut off just before one of the punchlines?

Next, the promise of two video cameras was not realised which meant that during the marriage vows, we can’t even see my face. Just one camera so we have a fetching view of the back of my head.

In all, the experience was less than negative – it was complete disaster. It’s taken us five months now and we’ve just given up and asked for the original footage because, to be honest, unless the footage itself is complete dross, my dog could do a better job of editing it. We sent an email requesting the tapes to be sent special delivery.

Your wedding day is meant to be the happiest day of your life and we were meant to receive:

Your day captured and presented in beautiful display cases with five copies to give out to friends and family.

• All the shots from your big day.
• 5 DVDs.
• Attractive display cases.

We paid extra for him to film the bride getting ready at the house but he was late so only got the bride leaving for the church.

This is what we got in the post.

So, I’d wholly recommend that everyone avoid Mark Gillespie as a videographer for your wedding. He’s slow, unreliable, belligerent and even though he was paid in advance, treated us like second class citizens. We were subject to his whims. A thorough lack of professionalism throughout his work.

He writes:

Whilst considering which Wedding Videography company to go for, you have not only to consider quality but budget and style. This is why we believe that our wedding dvd packages are, and shall remain, highly competitive and flexible enough to incorporate any ideas you may have for the day. Our process fully involves you, from the very start, in the layout of the final production – from visual effects to background music.

Absolute lies.

He continues:

We use two Sony HVR-Z1 Cameras. From Sony’s professional camcorder range the HVR-Z1 records stunning picture quality in standard DVD video format or in the latest high definition.

Again, more lies. He used one camera and there’s no way anything was recording in DVD quality, never mind high definition. The sound was apparently from Sennheiser microphones? Maybe if they were buried under the carpet?

It just goes to show that having a nice web site doesn’t guarantee quality especially when the web site says:

Today wedding videographers are a penny a dozen with every Joe and his camcorder taking up the challenge, for a fee of course. That is why you need not only know that the videographer is experienced and competent, but that they use the latest equipment to ensure that your production is of the utmost quality.

The man is a charlatan and an idiot.