Day 6: Disastrous Disney Photo Shoot + Snoozin’ Through the Magic Kingdom

The plan for today was to do a 6am Magic Kingdom Portrait Session before the park opened and then run back to the park for rope-drop and spend the day there.

Just to give you a little background, the Magic Kingdom Portrait Session is a HUGE deal for Disney brides because it’s the only way you can get pictures in your wedding dress in the park, and at the time it was only available to people who got married at Disney. It’s not PhotoPass photography during park hours – you get picked up by a member of Disney’s professional photography department and driven inside the park before it opens for a photo shoot, usually at either 5am or 6am. Only one couple is allowed in the park at a time. And the price is ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS (this will be very important in a moment). Two weeks after the shoot they post all your photos online for you to see and they mail you one 4×6 print of each picture. Then you get an album with 12 pictures in it. And that’s all you get. If you want more pictures, prices range from $13 for a 4×6 print to $30 for an 8×10 to $85 for 16×20.

I got up at about 4am to do my hair and makeup for the Magic Kingdom photo shoot. Originally I was going to have Patricia Lejeune come back for this, but the more MK pix I saw, the more I realized that they are shot from so far away you can barely see anyone’s makeup (if I’d only known then just HOW far away, I might have slept in a little later…). The tricky part was styling my hair – I ended up with a low-rent version of Patricia’s fabulous updo featuring more bobby pins than hair.

It was fun to get back in our wedding clothes, and we got some congratulations as we walked to the front of the Beach Club to meet our Disney photographer at 6am. As we piled into his van and set off for the Magic Kingdom, I sensed that he was slightly threatened by the fact that we’d used a non-Disney photographer for our wedding. He wasn’t aggressive about it the way some Disney photogs reportedly are, but I wished I’d let Patrick in on how delicate the situation was. As he yammered on and on about how great the Roots are, I was trying every facial and hand signal I could think of to get him to cool it, all of which were lost in the pre-dawn blackness. When our van pulled up to the hub in front of Cinderella Castle, I finally had a chance to whisper under my breath, “Ixnay on the ootsRay!” when our photographer got out.

First up were the stock poses in front of the castle. WAAAAY in front of the castle…

Who dat?


We got to throw in a few of our own, though. You should have seen the photographer’s eyes bug out when I said I wanted to re-create Luke & Leia’s pose on the Star Wars poster. He sputtered, “You’re going to lie on the ground?!” I was totally over worrying about my dress – the thing is polyester! You can throw it in the washing machine! So Patrick raised his arms above his head, clasping my bouquet as a light saber, while I lay on my side and wrapped myself around his leg.

Unfortunately the paths up to the castle and through it were blocked off, so we didn’t get to do any of the close-up castle shots I like or this neat one looking through the castle and back down Main Street, U.S.A. that I’ve seen a lot. This was pretty disappointing – it’s not like we’re ever going to do this photo shoot again. So our next stop was Main Street, U.S.A. We got one or two good ones here, but again we were hampered by the awkward poses our photographer suggested. For some reason there are a bazillion shots of the ceiling of the movie theater with a tiny me in the background stiffly holding up the building with one arm…

“So… how do you guys hold this thing up when I’m not around…?”


There are also numerous bland shots of Patrick in front of the “puppets” sign above one of the Main Street shops because, you know, he’s a puppeteer. Eh? Eh? Anyone…? About the only action in these pictures is the truck driving through the back of some of them.

Off to Frontierland! This picture was the one we knew we had to have (and I think it’s OK to post here because the lovely bride has it in her signature on the DIS). I love the way the sun is just beginning to rise and the castle is glowing behind them. About the only thing glowing in our picture is a lamp that was either added to the bridge before we got there or Photoshopped out of the picture we liked….

Thank goodness for Photoshop – Disney eventually removed our lamp digitally, though I still think you need a magnifying glass to know who we are!

Next we walked around the side of the castle to take some shots of me on a bench looming over Patrick. Grrr… We thought he was gonna crop us from waist up, or something, but instead we got a pic of me standing on a bench…???

“See, when I Photoshop out the bench, it’ll look like you’re levitating!”


Off we went to take shots of us blocking the Cinderella fountain…

“I’m gonna need you guys to move a little to the left – I can still see the fountain.”


Then we got a few shots in front of the mosaics in the blocked-off passageway through the castle (complete with workers walking through the back!). I’m not sure why you would ever pose a tall bride in the foreground with a short groom in the background….

New Incredible Shrinking Groom ™! So compact, you can carry him on your bouquet! (Random stranger sold separately)


… and we posed for some pictures with an exit sign, er, I mean a suit of armor in the lobby of Cinderella’s Royal Table.

Now I have to say that the experience of taking pictures in the Magic Kingdom before it opened was great. We were a little nervous about how they were going to turn out even then, but we mostly just tried to enjoy that special opportunity in the park. I’m just not so sure the experience alone was worth the money for us, and the resulting photos certainly weren’t. This isn’t just a difference in taste or style – these photos looked like they were taken by someone without even basic photographic training: shots of us in front of the castle were framed to include lamps, trash cans, and expanses of sky and pavement, with a tiny bridal couple and tiny castle somewhere in the middle. In many shots the camera was slightly tilted so that the castle listed to the right or left behind us; blurry and closed-eye shots that never should have been included were; there were people walking through the backs of shots; glowing exit signs were not framed out of shots; and an extremely clumsy Photoshop job had left one picture with black lines and a burnout in the middle of it. Bad show!

When we were done with the Magic Kingdom photo shoot, our photographer drove us back to our resort, regaling us with tales of doing photography for multiple weddings of this one guy who keeps getting remarried at Walt Disney World – like, seven times! He dropped us at the Beach Club, where we quickly changed and then ran back out to the Magic Kingdom in time for rope drop!

The only problem was…. I sleepwalked through the rest of the day. I’d thought that giving us a day off between the wedding and our MK shoot would be enough time to recuperate for the 6am shoot. Plus, I usually have no trouble getting up early. But I guess the whirlwind of the previous few days finally caught up with me, because I could barely keep my eyes open on my first real trip to the Magic Kingdom in 15 years. I can’t even imagine taking our MK pix the day of our wedding like some couples do!

Even though I picked the absolute SLOWEST way to get to the MK (rental car to TTC, boat from TTC to MK), we still got there well before the little pre-show celebration at the train station, which we couldn’t see because we were lined up in front of one of the tunnels. As soon as the rope dropped, we did the Disney Speed Walk all the way to Space Mountain, eager to try the “classic” version since we love Disneyland’s so much. We ran through the queue (I wish I could remember which side, because apparently they are different experiences…?) and got to be some of the first people on it.

No offense, diehards, but it was LAME! No music? Rattly, jerky cars? Instead of screaming, we could be heard saying things like, “Oh.” and “Huh?” as our car bumped along. When we got off the ride, Patrick and I looked at each other and said, “Disneyland 1, Magic Kingdom ZERO!” Completely flouting any logical touring plans, we next rode Buzz Lightyear (much better theming than our Disneyland version) and the Astro Orbiter. We’re used to the Disneyland one, which is on the ground instead of on top of the Peoplemover track, and it made us kinda queasy. On the elevator ride up we got in line with a couple also wearing bride and groom ears and asked when they’d been married. They said they’d just become engaged at the Magic Kingdom a few nights before. Awwww…!

“Hi, Mom!”


“She’s nuzzling my flesh with her nose!”


Off to Fantasyland! What a trip – it looks so much different than Disneyland’s Fantasyland, and I couldn’t find ANYTHING! I’ve never had to use a park map so much… We’d heard rave reviews of Mickey’s PhilharMagic, but I could barely keep my eyes open. (Also, I’m not terribly interested in films and shows even on a perky day.) Patrick said he thought we may have been sitting too close, so we’ll have to try it again in September. We also rode Small World and Winnie the Pooh, which is WAY better than ours.

Off to Frontierland! We were bowled over by its lush scenery and loved the river-front path. Score another one for Magic Kingdom! (We weren’t actually keeping score by this point – trying to account for all the variables made my brain hurt.) Also, tourists that we were, we couldn’t get over all the exotic-to-us birds just hanging out all over the parks, like this guy.

The Pigeon of the East


We were really impressed by the queue at Big Thunder Mountain, and after we got off the ride, we went back into the queue to make a wish at the fountain. My new husband brought a tear to my eye when he said, “Gee, I don’t know what to wish for anymore…!”

At lunch time we headed for Columbia Harbor House. I am a big food snob and never eat much counter service (all of which will change when we go for the free Disney Dining Plan in a few months!) but I had heard good things about CHH. For one thing, I loved the atmosphere! We sat upstairs in the room that bridges the walking path and watched people. I’m sorry, I forgot to take a picture of our meal—you’ll have to use your… imaginaTIONNNNNNNN! It was fish strips, clam chowder, BLT salad, and one piece of paid chocolate cake and one piece of FREE chocolate cake fer gettin’ married. Burp!

After lunch we rolled around Adventureland….

One thing we were really excited about was seeing Swiss Family Tree House. Tarzan’s Tree House just isn’t as cool. Patrick would live in the Swiss Family Tree House if he could.

Zzzz….whoa! Where am I? Who’s this guy?! Sure… “cheese”… whatever…


We loved the what they’d done with the exterior of the Tiki Room. What they’d done on the interior, not so much…

I’d done my homework, so I was prepared for the mess that is “The Tiki Room… Under New Management.” Patrick, on the other hand, was appalled. When they got to the part where Iago quips, “Who turned out the lights?” I thought Patrick was going to get up and walk out (that phrase has always been our secret shorthand for any stale, tired joke).

Next we rode Pirates, which had another wonderfully themed queue for us to blaze through – no crowds! We thought they did a way better job of incorporating the new Jack Sparrow treasure room scene than at Disneyland, where they basically stuck a box at the end of the last room by the waterfall – lame! Other than that, the ride was kinda disappointing. When we came out, we snapped a few pictures, including this accidentally great one of Captain Hook under the Pirates sign.

Back to Liberty Square! I got a little unscheduled nap in during the Hall o’ Presidents, and then we hit Haunted Mansion. It really knocked our socks off! The new show scenes that we don’t have at Disneyland were great, and I loved how the whole thing felt more immersive – the high ceilings, large rooms, super-dark sets… (mind you, the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland is my all-time favorite ride, so this is a big stretch to admit!)

Patrick was very excited to see Country Bears, his all-time fave ride, since Disneyland has replaced it with that cheap-o version of the Winnie the Pooh ride. I was very excited to get in another nap.

Among my other “napportunities” were Carousel of Progress and the Peoplemover (I have a feeling it is called something different these days… Tomorrowland Transit Authority? Boooooring!!).

I was sad about this because they were also rides we no longer have at Disneyland that I remember fondly. And several years ago they were only operating CoP seasonally at WDW, scaring us into thinking it would be closed for good!

So here was my chance to finally see them again and….

Oh boy, was that an unflattering shot. Let’s all clear our minds of that image by looking at this for a moment instead:

So I was very sorry to be too tired to appreciate Carousel of Progress and the Peoplemo- er, uh, the TTA. Patrick tried to get a pic for me of Progress City, a.k.a. the Epcot That Could Have Been. We like to spend hours talking about what it would have been like to live in the city Walt wanted…

…it would have been really blurry!

 

I managed to keep my eyes open for the Jungle Cruise, and then we checked out the rather underwhelming ToonTown. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and fell asleep on a bench in an alley off Main Street like a Magical Disney Hobo™. Eventually a member of the Dream Squad who was off-duty (dang!) came by to make sure I wasn’t dead and ended up talking to Patrick for half an hour. It turned out he knew our MK Shoot photographer, and he even started telling us the same story about the guy who keeps having Disney weddings with new brides.

Eventually Patrick asked if I thought we could walk around a bit before dinner, and we took some pictures around the castle.

Looks like this guy studied under our MK Shoot photographer!

Finally it was time for our dinner reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table, which I was really looking forward to. We checked in outside, said hi to our knight buddy in the lobby, and waited a few minutes to be called upstairs. Oh, and we got a deer-in-the-headlights-style photo taken with Cinderella, plus a plastic wand and sword. I wish I coulda had a sword too….

We mentioned our honeymoon on our reservation, and we got the best table in the house, right under the window over Fantasyland.

The view


The prime rib wasn’t as bad as I’d heard, and we got the free toasting flutes for our honeymoon.

…It only *looks* disgusting!

We also got a shoutout from the Fairy Godmother for being the only newlyweds in the place that night, and a large rodent (Suzy? Perla?) insisted on having her picture taken with us.

Ow! I’m sorry, Suzy/Perla, I’ll learn your name – just stop squeezing me!


OK, so nobody on the DIS dining boards could understand why I was trying so hard to get a reservation at CRT during the fireworks, instead of working the reservation around a castle-front viewing of Wishes. Well when the music started and we were sitting in the window looking right out at the fireworks, Patrick went nuts! (But not so nuts that he couldn’t take these pictures…) He kept saying, “Wow! What a great idea! Thank you so much for arranging this. I can’t believe how close the fireworks are!”

It really was amazing and even, dare I say it, magical!

The park was closed when we got out, so we took the monorail to the tram to the rental car to the Beach Club to the shower to the bed. Good night!

Day 7: First Full Day at Epcot

Back to Top

34 Responses
  • lowri
    November 27, 2017

    Wow I’m so sorry about your wedding photos. I worked as a photographer for awhile when I was 18 doing weddings and my photos were 100% better than this.
    As previously mentioned, I’m getting married in 2019 in Disney and I pray the photo service has improved! I’d love an evening photoshoot, I’ve never been a morning person but after this I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t suit me.

    • Carrie
      November 27, 2017

      You don’t have to use Disney for your wedding photography! Many of us hire outside photographers because we want to know who’s going to be shooting our wedding and what his/her style is. Even if I’d done Escape or Memories, I would have given up the photography included in the package in order to pick the Roots. And with Escape, they let you swap the included Disney wedding photography for dessert party photography or a resort portrait session if you use an outside vendor for your wedding.

    • Crystal
      December 16, 2017

      I got married 10/16/17 at Disney and had the very same experience with my park shoot. It seems nothing has changed. I actually would rather have some of the shots you got! I would not recommend spending the money on this to anyone! If your heart is set, research the photographers (they are all listed on the website by name) and make a request. We had 4 different people over the course of the ceremony (somone called out sick) and between our two park shoots. The one for our Magic Kingdom shoot was absolutely terrible and even blurred the castle purposely (Disney told us that was “just his style” when we complained). They offered to do a re-shoot but again this requires travel, hotel, tux rental, dress cleaning and hair and makeup. Lots of money we don’t have. If we decide to do it, I will only do it with a photographer I choose.

      • Carrie
        December 18, 2017

        Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear this. Hopefully your wedding photos turned out well!

  • Natasha Koetsch
    June 20, 2014

    I am SO sorry about your experience with the WDW wedding photography service! I work as one of the park photopass right now as an intership and am hoping to get into the Event Photography internship, which is all about the weddings and engagements. I only hope that in the last few years they’ve gotten better. I keep looking around their website: http://www.disneyeventphotography.com/weddings/

    And most of them look so good. I don’t know, maybe it’s just because they only put the best ones on the website. But, I have to say, the ones they did for you were Horrible! Again, I am SO sorry!

    • Carrie
      June 20, 2014

      Thanks for your kind words! Several of the Disney Event Photography staffers get rave reviews from brides, and I think they are the ones who, like you, really love wedding photography and really give it their all. Best of luck with your internship application—the department needs enthusiastic photographers!

      • Tasha Koetsch
        November 3, 2016

        Hi Carrie!

        I actually came across this again and wanted to give you an update. I actually did get into the Fine Art Photography department and got to work with them in their Wedding and Portrait services. And I honestly don’t know what to say. Of course, my time there started more than a couple of years after your Bridal Portraits. But, I do know now that they do hire professional photographers who almost all have their own photography businesses outside of Disney. I’m pretty sure the photographer who took your photos isn’t there anymore, or improved drastically, though, because one of my main jobs was selecting which photos got used in Social media marketing. So, I spent a LOT of time staring at everyone’s style and your bridals just don’t match the quality I’ve seen put out during my time there and after. Of course, they do hire photographers of all different style so that they can cater to everyone, but those are just bad, I’m so sorry to say. And yes, unfortunately they were still using the god awful outsourcing company for editing when I left in 2015. But, thankfully they were looking into getting a new one. Unfortunately Disney Fine Art Photography is under an umbrella group of DEG- Disney Event Group, which is under another Umbrella Co, which is then under Disney. So, a LOT of wheels have to be greased before things get done. So, I don’t know if it’s happened yet

        I do know though ( and I don’t know if this was the case when you had your portraits) that Brides choose up to 3 photographers and basically whomever is available out of those three, due to scheduling, would get picked to do the event. For future brides who read through this, Amanda, Stephanie, Jaime, and Cami are my favorites. Just fyi.

        I hope you’re doing well though, and If you ever head out to Tennessee, swing by my studio and we’ll get some bridals done for you!

        -Tasha Koetsch
        TK Photographies
        http://www.tkphotographies.co

        • Carrie
          November 13, 2016

          Hi Tasha! Thanks so much for the update! This is fascinating stuff… congrats on starting your own business!

  • Patty
    March 12, 2014

    Are you kidding me? There photos were done by a Disney Photographer??? I’m shocked. So unprofessional.

    • Carrie
      March 12, 2014

      Yeah, unfortunately, Disney doesn’t want to pay to hire pros, they just train people with a little bit of experience. Usually what happens is, as their photographers start to become good, they leave Disney to open their own photography businesses, so then Disney’s back to hiring another novice….

  • Ashley
    December 16, 2013

    Hi Carrie,
    Love your website and advice I have seen on some of the Disney Boards. However, I am now terrified that my wedding photos will be awful due to Disney having to take them because we are having it at SBP and the LSS and DP at Isola West Plaza. Are we allowed to request Disney Photographers or see some of their work beforehand? I am thinking about roots for an engagement session once we move to Florida. Any advice on photos would be appreciated. Any advice you have at all would be. A nervous bride now.

    • Carrie
      December 16, 2013

      Oh shoot! I didn’t mean to scare you! The good news is, Disney now allows outside photographers to shoot inside the parks (at private events only, not for bridal portraits in the Magic Kingdom like mine), so you don’t have to use Disney photography for your event. If they are available, you could even use the Roots! Those who do choose Disney can put in requests for specific photographers and see a few examples of their work, but Disney can’t guarantee they’ll get the person you want.

  • Darren
    May 31, 2013

    We just did the photo portraits session over in Epcot. Based on our experience Epcot is just as inconsistent. We had our photo shoot in the beginning of May 2013 and made the mistake of trusting the photographer. First off it was raining on and off the whole day but in the morning it was just grey and misting on and off. When we asked about rescheduling the photographer basically, no it is fine, they will fix all of this in photoshop.

    When we got the pictures … um, yeah … to be harsh are they using a local high school photography club to do photo editing? The white balance was way off on a lot of shots, others looked like they were applying instagram filters. We had one in front of Morocco where they desaturated everything except the red tones and shifted them toward purple. Yeah that is what you want for an engagement portrait.

    Then unfortunately we had the same problems you report when it came to framing shots. As in excuse me Disney this is supposed to be portrait not photography of your pavilions that just happens to have a small speck in the corner which is us.

    The only silver lining we had is we paid to have a disc of the high res images and after several communications with Disney they finally agreed to give us the orginals without any photo editing by them so somebody else can do it.

    • Carrie
      May 31, 2013

      I’m so sorry to hear about your bad experience. Unfortunately, the quality really does depend on the photographer you get. They do outsource the photos for editing—maybe they need to find a new vendor! Hopefully you will have enough raw material to work with when you get the disc that you can salvage some.

  • Michelle
    May 21, 2013

    You kept mentioning Disneyland. Do you think you we’re more focused on what Walt Disney World didn’t have compared to Disneyland? It seemed WDW was already set up to fail with your constant comparison to Disneyland. I would have definitely complained about the photos but it seemed you didn’t enjoy yourselves at all. Wish you could have experienced the WDW we know and love.

    • Carrie
      May 22, 2013

      Hmmm… I think if you continue to read the rest of this report, as well as the seven other WDW trip reports I’ve written since this first report, you will find that we love the Magic Kingdom for its differences from Disneyland and even find certain aspects superior (like its Haunted Mansion!).

  • Cliff
    May 18, 2013

    Is the park photo experience inside other parks as inconsistent? We’re thinkng of doing Epcot for the bridal shoot. I’m so sorry about your magic kingdom pics.

    Do those pics get included on the high res cd? We’re planning to do them the same day as the wedding.

    • Carrie
      May 20, 2013

      They have one group of photographers who shoot in all the parks, so, unfortunately, the problem has to do with the inconsistency in quality among the photographers, not which park you’re in. If you are already purchasing a hi-res or archival disc of images from Disney for your wedding, they will include the bridal portrait shots on it at no charge.

  • Autumn
    April 17, 2013

    OMG, I had nearly the same MK photo experience!! My pictures are awful. We didn’t purchase a single print because they were so bad. I don’t remember the guy’s name. He was telling us how he has been working for Disney for nearly 20 years, he started as a stunt guy then moved to another area and now he is a photographer. Wow. A stunt guy did my wedding photos. Nice. I was so disappointed. It was not worth the money in my opinion.

    • Carrie
      April 17, 2013

      We had the same guy! Sorry to hear you also had a bad experience. 🙁 It wouldn’t sting as badly if they didn’t charge so dang much!

  • MichelleD
    February 14, 2013

    I am shocked by the amazing view you had of the fireworks from inside the castle. I ate there with friends during a MNSSHP just left of center. The glass in the window was so old-timey wobbly that we had a very poor view of the sunset and lights over Fantasyland. We speculated it was to keep us from looking over the partial roofs of the show buildings. I’ve discouraged others from picking a window seat explicitly for the view, assuming the other windows were like ours.

    • Carrie
      February 14, 2013

      Interesting… now that you mention it, I’ve had warped glass at the other CRT window seats I’ve sat at over the years too. I wonder if that center seat is the only one with a window you can really see out of…

  • Jessica
    December 10, 2012

    I was engaged in Disney earlier this year, and we did our engagement pictures at MGM and used a Disney Photographer, whom we actually fell in love with!! I feel like her images were amazing, we are actually flying her out to Philadelphia in April 2014 to shoot our wedding. I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but I think with the right photographer, it may have went a little different.

  • Sobeida
    June 20, 2012

    This was last year in May. We got the photo disk and only printed out 3 photos. I don’t even remember how much it cost us but when i read your story i was like NOOO! id cry! Glad you got some good ones in there but for the price they don’t even compare to your great wedding day photos.
    Even though its still about 4 years away I’m looking into having a vow renewal for our 10 year anniversary. I didn’t have the wedding of my dreams and i was only 19 when i got married but my husband and i have fallen in love with Disney World and we save and plan for all our star wars weekend trips. After seeing my friend Melissas wedding my husband looked at me and said “I promise we will get remarried at Disney World” (JOY!!) so I’m in the planning/saving process

  • Sobeida
    June 20, 2012

    You are so funny! Im sorry about your photos, i can’t imagine paying that much money and not getting good photos. The same thing happened to us when we booked a family photo shoot at the grand floridian. The guy was really nice when we started out and we told him what we wanted to do and after that he just wanted to “try” some stuff and of coarse there was no time to do the poses we wanted. He had me and my husband doing engagement style poses when we wanted pictures with our son. We were laughing the whole time so we look like dorks in all the photos. We had extra shirts cause we wanted just one good picture in our red sox gear on the green lawn and since our time was up he had us stand in front of some tall dead grass and snapped 2 quick photos. Both photos were bad and we didn’t get the picture we wanted. i could have gotten better photos by asking strangers to take our picture with my camera. 🙁

    • Carrie
      June 20, 2012

      Oh no! Is it too late to ask for your money back? I’ll bet you wouldn’t have as hard a time of it as we did cuz it’s not such a huge chunk of change! 😉

  • Julie
    May 14, 2012

    We are having our 10 year vow renewal in WDW with the Two parks bridal portrait session in September. Where did you get your necklace?

  • Katie
    March 10, 2012

    Now that I’m planning our first Disney World trip, I’m about 6 days from making my ADR’s and I’m nervous!! What time would you recommend for our Royal Table reservation to be able to get a shot at that view of Wishes?
    Thanks!
    -Katie

    • Carrie
      March 10, 2012

      Hi Katie! I would say that about 45 minutes before showtime should be good, to give you leeway if they take too long to seat you. I’d also note any special celebration on your reservation just to increase the chances of getting that prime center spot!

  • Alicia
    September 24, 2011

    That sucks so much about your photo shoot! I am not a seasoned photographer by any means, but I’ve charged much less for shoots and can honestly say I can do better than that. It’s so not fair you are stuck with those photos and a photographer like that for a once in a lifetime shoot. What awkward shots! That guy should definitely look into a new profession. Your wedding picture, however, looks gorgeous!

    • lurkyloo
      September 24, 2011

      😀 Thanks for the support!

  • Norma
    July 17, 2011

    Ok so MK photoshoot….leaves a little to be desired. I’ve seen some on the DIS boards that are AMAZING and others that make me want to cry FOR them. The Roots did a fabulous job with your wedding pictures and that probably makes the MK ones even more disappointing. My question for you is if you were to be getting married now and with the lovely new rules about Disney Photography only inside the parks have to use them instead of The Roots would you still get married at Epcot? Maybe I’m a photo-snob but the new rule is deterring me from a Disney wedding now and just wondering what your opinion is on the matter. Also, did you complain about your MK photos? Do they offer anything like a reshoot if you get your photos back and it looks like you’re constantly at the end of a long tunnel??

    • lurkyloo
      July 18, 2011

      Honestly, I don’t think we even would have had a Walt Disney World wedding if we hadn’t been able to use the Roots in a park, because photography was so important to us. To us there was no point in everyone going all the way out to Florida to get married in a gazebo or a chapel—we have plenty of those in California! The whole reason we did it was to get married inside a theme park (and since Disneyland’s prices are so high, WDW was the only option). We did complain about the photos, but it took 8 or 9 months of pestering them and not taking “no” for an answer to finally get a solution we could accept. They wanted us to come out for a re-shoot, but that would have meant we’d be out hundreds of dollars for travel costs, tux rental, makeup, gown steaming, new bouquet, etc. They also kept insisting there was nothing wrong with our photos even though I sent them a 15-page document full of side-by-side comparisons of our photos with other MK photos done by Disney. At one point, the executive in charge of DPS actually said something like, “This is over,” and hung up the phone on Patrick in the middle of a call! It was a nightmare, and to this day, I feel queasy whenever I look at our photos.

What do you think?

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.