The Event Connection

I would like to respond both to the Unilocal community and Rich C. of The Event Connection to his response to my initial review. On January 7, 2014, 14 months after my wedding and 10 months after I wrote my review, Rich C. from The Event Connection contacted me by phone to discuss my review on Unilocal.He wanted to know why I felt the way I did and if there was anything he could do to rectify the situation. Seeing as my wedding was over (for more than a year) and my 200 guests have gone home and on with their lives, there wasn’t anything that could be done to rectify the situation. Let’s go over the «FACTS» of the situation:
1. My original wedding venue, Christina’s, closed in July 2012. Not October, as referenced by Rich;
2. I didn’t call The Event Connection in October 2012, I sent my final payment, as required by our signed contract, on October 3, 2012 with a letter confirming the changes, as agreed upon. Please be reminded, a new contract was signed after July 2012, in anticipation of the new wedding venue and date. There was no mention of Rich C., my originally contracted photographer not being available on our contracted date at this point;
3. I received a phone call from Rich C. to advise that he would not be available for my wedding and that he would be setting me up with another photographer, Rich M., who he contracted with regularly and would I like to meet him. Of course I wanted to meet him. He was going to be photographing my wedding. I had met with Rich C. twice previously and in agreement with our signed contract, my payments were all paid in full on time. I was contacted by Rich C. to meet with Rich M. after a The Event Connection received and cashed my final check for fulfillment of our contracted price. Also, it wasn’t a month in advance like he is alleging. What bride waits until Monday to meet her photographer when her wedding is Friday when I had allegedly 4 week prior to set up this meeting… Doesn’t make sense!
4. It was 4 days before my wedding that I met the new photographer, so I maintain that he was DUMPED on me. What else was I going to do? Say no? And hope someone showed up?
5. Regarding the videography contract, video was part of the package I purchased from the original wedding venue, Christina’s. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have purchased it. I paid out of pocket to The Event Connection for photography. I was never paying for videography out of pocket, and, as such, when my contract with Christina’s was voided by them closing, so was my videography contract. Rich C., if you’re looking for money expended to your videographer, I suggested you call Marjorie Claprood, Chris Spinnazzola and/​or their newly packaged «event planning» business, Clappazzola, because those two are running around with $ 12,000 of my money that they stole, which is in violation of my contract with them. Secondly, if you’re looking for sympathy you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t feel bad about my review because it is simply the truth. Wonder why my review is recommended and your 10+ others aren’t??? Use your brain. And about the 16×20, thanks for the offer, but I own the rights to my pictures so I’m all set. Remember, it’s in our contract ;)

My wedding was in February 2013. The Event Connection was a recommended vendor, and I paid them for DJ, lighting, and videography.
PRAISE:
— The Dj, John, was spectacular. Absolutely everyone loved him, and everyone was up dancing the whole night, even my husband’s socially inept uncle. He responded to all my needs and double-​checked to make sure all his information was right. I can’t say enough good things about him.
— The lighting was also wonderful and enhanced the day’s events.
— They gave us a great discounted price for all 3 services.
COMPLAINTS:
The guy you will work with the most is Richie. He has an aggressive, egotistical personality which you will likely first see when he tries to convince you to buy every service possible from him. Fine, he’s a businessman. My problem is how his ego affected his behavior the day of the wedding and the days following the wedding.
He did the videography for the wedding. To quote his website: «One of the nicest comments we receive is, ‘We love our video and we didn’t even notice you shooting it.’» He repeated this sentiment to me more than once, saying we didn’t have to worry about him being intrusive. NOTHING could be further from the truth! He acted like our wedding day was his movie to direct. He would constantly ambush people before and after the ceremony with questions they were not prepared or not willing to answer. This created uncomfortable moments that interfered with our enjoyment of the day, not to mention footage in the video that is awkward and simply not genuine.
For example, 5 minutes after the ceremony, he barged into me and my wedding party and asked, «How’s married life?» Dude, let me experience it a little first!
Another example: My dad walked into the room and saw me in my wedding dress for the first time. This was just a normal event that occurred during the day, «behind the scenes.» Richie felt the need to hammer us with questions.
RICHIE: Tell me what you think of your beautiful baby girl.
DAD: (Not prepared) Oh, she’s beautiful.
RICHIE: Tell me your thoughts when you first saw her in her wedding dress.
DAD: What’s that?
RICHIE: :repeats question:
DAD: I thought it was just, uh, just the way I imagined her to be.
RICHIE: Amazing, huh?
DAD: Yup.
:weird pause:
RICHIE: Mom, what do we think?
MOM: She’s a princess.
ME: (interrupting) Should I put on my veil? Oh. (turns back to the camera)
MOM: She’s our princess.
RICHIE: Seems like only yesterday you were taking her home from the hospital, huh?
MOM: Yup. Time flies.
RICHIE: Amazing.
:weird pause because we want him to go away:
This whole sequence was INCLUDED in the EDITED video of our day! Yup, complete with Richie’s voice, the awkward pauses, and my dad needing him to repeat the question. There were several other painful moments like this.
He also would spontaneously ask us to kiss or do other things for the camera at different parts of the day. He was supposed to capture the moments of the day, not direct and fabricate them! So that comment about, «We never knew he was there,» is an absolute lie. You WILL know he is there. He doesn’t let you forget it.
Let’s talk about other unacceptable features of this edited video he delivered to us:
He includes us saying our vows and exchanging rings, but then SKIPS right past the kiss! Just jumps right over it with a crappy screen wipe and transitions into us walking out of the ceremony room. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
We took dance lessons and did a choreographed first dance. Unfortunately, partway through, I stepped on my dress and undid my bustle. We finished up the dance as best we could. He included segments of the dance where we are stumbling around. I felt embarrassed watching it.
The big kicker is that he included footage OF HIMSELF wearing a silly hat and waving. As if anyone wants to see HIS face! Again, please refer back to how his selling point is that YOU WILL NOT KNOW HE IS THERE.
I have lots more complaints, but I have limited space here. Slow motion in the video looks pixelated and awful. Lame screen wipes. He included an ad for his business at the end of the video, with me saying how great they are.
They told us 16 – 20 weeks for the video, then told me they were ahead of schedule and it would probably be 10 weeks. We waited 23 weeks and had to harass them with phone calls to get an amateur piece of junk. Luckily, we have all the raw footage.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Richie had a few unprofessional moments on the day of the wedding. He also does photography, and obviously thinks he is hot stuff. He disagreed with some choices my photog made and muttered and made faces about it to his assistant. My photog was AMAZING and we have INCREDIBLE pictures. We also got those pictures THE WEEK AFTER THE WEDDING, not 23 weeks after.
So suck on that, Richie. And get over yourself.

This business is located in Randolph, MA. I was married in 2007 and it is now going into 2009. I have not received my wedding album yet. I was told the $ 850 dollar album I purchased was no longer available and they would provide a «similar» album in place. The «similar» album is the equivalent to making your own on a photo retailer website definitely not worth the $ 850 original glass top album I was promised. I also purchased DJ services from this company and the DJ (I have the video to prove this) talked about himself and went off on stories on the microphone about the groom or bride that weren’t true! Our guests were very confused! Luckily we could laugh about this later but for the money we spent with this company it was such a rip-​off and the people are awesome con-​artists they meet you as if you were family and scribble numbers and services down quickly on paper repeating to you what a great «deal» they are offering you. Once the money is in the service is dropped-​big time! So sad but hopefully this helps someone considering them…