Singapore – Ms. Domenica Tan and her husband had a distressful experience with a wedding photography company called French Toast Production who “lost” all of their actual wedding day photos and the videos to their pre-wedding shoot.
On February 15 (Friday), Ms. Tan shared a post on Facebook stating her experience with French Toast Productions for the bulk of their wedding events. The post started with Ms. Tan apologising to her friends and family because they will not be able to share most of the table photos taken during the wedding banquet. We all know how important these memories captured on paper are especially for those who travelled from different countries just to be with the newlyweds on their special day.
The couple first contacted French Toast in 2017 to finalise the schedule which included the actual day photography and videography, an overseas photoshoot in Hokkaido, and a golden hour local photo and video shoot at Coney Island.
Strike 1
The first inconvenience happened when the agreed rate for the Hokkaido shoot didn’t add up to the actual costs. Even with written communication via WhatsApp, which Ms. Tan also uploaded, the photographer named Shawn extended the argument and brought up all possible loopholes to make the couple agree to the revised rates. Out of the goodwill of Ms. Tan and her husband, they covered for the hotel accommodation costs of Shawn and the make-up artist which should have been included in the initial S$3500 rate.
Strike 2
Shawn suddenly changed the number of printed copies from 50 to 30 without prior notice. When the couple clarified, he assumed that he had informed them of the change when he didn’t.
Strike 3
Early October 2018, the couple received a long message from Jonathan (the videographer) saying that the video footage from Coney Island disappeared. Even though they were very disappointed, Ms. Tan and her husband further expanded their patience and believed French Toast Production when the latter said it wouldn’t happen again.
Strike 4
The last straw happened on January 19, 2019, six weeks after their wedding celebration. To condense a rather long dialogue between the newlyweds and company, the photos were lost due to a virus which rendered the majority of the photos unrecoverable.
Ms. Tan mentioned how Shawn denied the mistake as a failure in his part and blamed the virus. When they suggested a third-party software or service provider to retrieve the files, the photographer merely brushed it aside and said nothing could be done.
When they talked compensation for the loss, the company offered a free baby photo shoot which, as Ms. Tan explained, was “a gross assumption of what married life is” and it meant that they had to wait however long before it could be availed.
She ended her post with, “I hope that with us sharing this experience, no one else would have to go through the trauma of losing pre-wedding and wedding footages like we did.”
To Family and Friends who attended the wedding celebration of Wei Hao & I:We apologise that we will not be able to…
Posted by Domenica Tan on Thursday, 14 February 2019