Kiddie Kandids

We went to Union Babies-​R-​Us thinking that it’s their own photo studio and found out it was contracted to Kiddie Kandids. That’s OK, the photographer sold us a package that has the Portrait club membership included. We were thinking it will be worth it in the long run since we plan to have pictures taken every couple of months to have a good collection of her growth. Yesterday we dressed up our lovely girl in beautiful yellow dress and hoping to have her picture taken in the Union studio. When we got there the studio was closed and B-​R-​U said they moved in a hurry and we can try Dublin store. We got into the car and speed 15miles away to Dublin. WTF, Dublin studio is closed as well. I asked a girl that works for B-​R-​U, she said… yes they closed all the small studios and keeping the large ones. The closest one is in San Jose. We are not driving 30 miles to SJ. I email KK customer service to ask my membership fee to be refunded and waiting to see if they reply. Bottom line, I am extremely upset about the closure and the up sell of memberships. If I don’t hear from KK. I will take this to Babies-​R-​Us to see if they will do anything about this scam.

(This is what I wrote on their Facebook Fan Page.)
I had a horrile experience at your Union City, CA studio. The photographer was passive-​agressive. During my session, she performed under her capabilities. There were two other customers who came in during my session who were satisfied with their portraits but unfortunetly I did not receive the same service. I received horrible service. As you can see in the picture I provided (which I purchased the rights to) the background is black, my daughter’s hair is black and therefore you cannot see her hair. Frankly, it’s a horrible portrait.
And at the risk of making completely embarassing myself, I am also providing a photo of what the photographer «accidently» took. It is a picture of my backside. She said, «I’m sorry. That was me. I accidently took a picture.» I am completely mortified that she took this picture of me. I was vulnerable. It is disgusting a person would humilate a complete stranger in this way, especially a professional photographer. I am shaking uncontrollably right now as I write this post.

Don’t get your pictures here! The manager, Sharon, is slow and not attentive to the customers. Many people wait, completely unacknowledged. Frustrating! It is very difficult to redeem coupons, for example, there are many requirements to use a coupon. Taking the pictures is fine, but ordering the pictures is a long process. It takes this company 2 weeks turn around time to get the pictures back to the customer. This company is overall bad, difficult processes for the employees to follow. I’ve waited for over 2 hours on the customer service line (more than once!) because the pictures given to me were printed poorly. In the end nobody could print my pictures correctly and I had to reorder inferior pictures, because the software changes. It seems like nobody could help me! I would recommend taking your own pictures with a digital camera. This place is not worth the frustration.

Mixed feelings about this one. The first time we went in June it was so good we bought the membership. Photos were great! We went back in early Oct. The photo session was okay. We managed to get a few good shots. Here’s where it went south.
The manager ordered my photos, but instead of sending them to the lab, she printed them in the studio. When I went back to her after I paid for my lab prints, she tried to sell me the ones that printed in the studio (she said she didn’t know why they printed). She also put the pick-​up date as the same day I was there. I thought it was odd but dismissed it because she said it would take a week.
Well I went 2 weeks later and no pictures. The ultra nice lady (forgot her name — boo to me) who helped me when I went to pick them up figured out that the manager did not re-​order my pictures from the lab after she accidentally printed them in the studio. She came to my rescue and re-​ordered them from the lab, and threw in a free print for my troubles. Based on other reviews sounds like its only the manager that is the issue. Sadly, they were Halloween pics and I won’t get them until November.
4 stars or the lady who fixes my order! Minus 1 for the mess up in the first place.

The store manager Sharon is rude and discourteous. I have visited the store more than 4 times to attempt to pickup my session pictures, every time she is busy with another customer and does not even look at the counter, sometimes there has been a line of people waiting to pickup pictures.
When i got her attention she told me I need to wait for the session to get over. please, i dont have 20 min sit around time. I understand if she is in the middle of taking pictures but sometimes she is just showing the current customer the pictures on the computer. she can easily engage the customer with other things… if she had more skill.
In anycase a pick up takes only 1 min total,
Never going to visit this store again.
The studio session was nothing to write home about either. Ms Sharon apparently thinks she knows best and sneer at choices if they are different from her own when it comes to layouts, backgrounds, props etc.

This place really sucks!!! I didn’t know that they had changed management and became a different company, but I already made my appointment and dragged my two kids there so off we went to take pics. The gal taking our pics was SO BAD. Anyone who is a professional at taking baby pictures knows that they should always be ready to click when the moment is right, but she missed all the right opportunities when my son was smiling because she had the clicker in her pocket when she was re-​adjusting his position… missed SO many good shots! Then we were told that they no longer printed in the store (booo!) and it took 2 weeks to get the pics. When they finally came, they were printed SO ugly; color was really off and the paper was cheap. Maybe they print in China now?! NEVER, EVER going back and feel ripped off big time. I’d spent just as much as if I’d gone a nicer place like Picture People, which is what I’ll probably do from now on.
Parents, do not waste your time and money here!!!

I worked for kiddie kandids from 2009-​Dec 2010. i agree a lot has changed but a lot of people accuse the employees for these changes. It wasn’t our fault the original company closed and we all got fired without notice and that a new company bought it out and changed everything without letting the consumer know. during christmas i almost got attacked by people for the changes that weren’t our fault. The new company put an all new system in that kept either over heating on us or would freeze or something. Than we try to get ahold of our tech guys it honestly took us up to 2 hours just for someone to answer. than anther 20 mins just to fix the problem for it to happen again another hour later. We got told by our Bosses that if we didn’t do certain things this way, we would get a write up or lose our jobs. most of the photographers are from the original K.K. but please don’t blame them. before you judge the employees please look up CPI Law Suit. CPI is the new company that owns K.K. and is being sued. all i am saying is please don’t blame the employees. i understand that everyone is upset on the changes, we are too. I left because I wasn’t respected by my bosses, was waaaaay over worked, i had to work on my days off, got yelled at for things that weren’t my fault, and I had to do a million jobs at once. i hope this kind of gives you guys a little insight on everything. i just ask if you please don’t judge the employees based on what they’re told to do. thanks

we were happy to learn that they opened their services once more. we’ve had them do our holiday pictures for the past 4 years and we were very happy with their service IN THE PAST! this year is a different experience though.
first, the photographers aren’t professional as they use to. the one who did our session didn’t know what to do and had to call another girl to help her.
second, when we were choosing our pics, her boyfriend was standing right next to us, as if he was one of us. SO UNPROFESSIONAL!
lastly, we went back to get the finish product, because THEY DON“T PRINT THEM THERE ANYMORE!!! WE ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH THE FINAL PRODUCT. THE PAPER IS SO THIN AND THE PRINTING LOOKS VERY CHEAP (THE COLORS WERE TOO SHARP).
WE ARE NEVER COMING BACK TO HAVE ANY OF OUR PICTURES TAKEN AT KIDDIE KANDIDS ANYMORE.

This place is a rip off! I downloaded a coupon from their site for their 7.99 package. I read the fine prints several times and didn’t find any statement of minimal purhcase. When i got there, the manager told me there’s a minimum of 2 sheets purchase at the $ 20 to get the package. Fine… since i was there, might as well take my kids’ pics.
I was pretty happy with the manager when she took my older daughters pics. BUt when she took my 5 weeks old son pics, she pissed us off by being so rough on him. She even rushed through when her next appointment came in. She said something happened to her camera, she had to restart her camera. My baby started to cry when her camera rebooted. SHe told me to pick up my baby and we were done coz her next appointment came in. I asked if she can take a few more pics of my baby boy after the next appointment was done. she said «we don’t have time for that.» I was like, wtf??? She only got 1 pose of my son.
Choosing pics:
The gal created borders for me and told me there were 20 each. I asked her how much it would be without the borders… she said 10. Sounds cheap? she then suggested i should add a soft focus. Luckily i asked how much she charges, otherwise I would have paid $ 20 just for the soft focus. Kidddie kandids used to charge soft focus for free.
She even created a college for me, it was close to $ 40.
at checout, i noticed i was charged $ 15 for session fees. I wouldn’t have been so pissed if they have told me when i walked in. This place is a rip off… they have a lot of hidden cost and they won’t even tell u upfront!

They recently reopened and at first I was saddened by the fact that #1: Maria and the rest of the old crew left, and #2: they longer have the Milestone package. Under a new management, Kiddie Kandids changed their packages and pricings, as well as their staff. booo =.(
BUT! I found the next best thing to Maria S. and that is DANIELLE!!! She photographed my three month old son and she was just über über fantastic!!! From the moment she propped him up for his first shot, my little Caleb couldn’t stop giggling and smiling! I was super impressed at how effortless it was for Danielle to make my three month old smile and turn each click of her camera into a priceless portrait. Every shot was a winner making it quite a task to select which ones to purchase. She was undeniably remarkable at what she does!
Yes, I am a fan of Kiddie Kandids and of Danielle, but one minor detail that I subtracted one star for is the price. I paid more this time around compared to what I spent with my daughter and son in the past. My son’s photos were of course well worth the price, but I’m just sayin’.

I recently took my two month old here to get his pictures taken and our first family portrait. I’m happy with my pictures. I gave them 4 stars because they had their appointments booked back to back and so we didn’t get to take as many poses as I wish we had. I feel like our photographer was being rushed by her boss to be done with us, didnt like that very much, but considering its around Christmas time I can understand why they are soo busy. Our photographer did an excellent job I think it was Melissa. She was soo patient and wonderful with our baby and with the others I saw her work with other kids after us. Pictures are a bit pricey cheapest package was around $ 140. I will try and go back some time when they are not as busy and see how it goes.

We also decided to get our daughter’s second birthday photos done here, and I’m glad we did. It was a different photographer this time, but she was very good and got some wonderful shots. Again, I was disappointed that we were limited to their packages (who wants those awful «collage”-style things?) and to certain shots, so minus one star for that.