The Wedding Photographer from the Black Lagoon

So, I got married last November.  It was a wonderful affair, with wine and family and dancing and cake and guests coming from New York and Spain to help us celebrate.  It was really much better than I expected and lots better than I even wished for.  The caterers were thorough and invisible when they were supposed to be, the DJ played all the right music and none of the wrong music, and the cake was 5 layers, not 4 like we were expecting, because the baker wanted to give it some extra drama.  I love me a 5-tiered cake.  The photographer and his assistant were everywhere at all times, stayed from 11 in the morning until 11 at night, and didn’t mind when our set-up shot plan changed 3 times.  They left the reception when we did, and promised us our pictures in “4-6 weeks! by Christmas!”

Here is a timeline of how the next 4 months have gone.

Dec 15, haven’t heard anything from him, so I email him just to find out if he’ll post them soon. We’d love to sit down with our sets of parents and go through the pictures.  Photographer doesn’t respond.
Dec 22, Facebook informs me he’s going to Mexico for Christmas.
Dec 22, I email him again because I haven’t heard back.
Dec 23, Photographer informs me via email that he’s “out of the country” for the holidays and will return after the New Year.
Jan 6, I email him again asking because I haven’t heard anything.
Jan 6, He writes back saying he’s almost done!
Jan 11, They’re posted! We’re so happy. I email him back asking for a couple others shots – one, a group shot with the girls I used to babysit, which I definitely remember being taken. Two, anything, from any point in the night, of me and my mom together. He tells me he’s out of town until Jan 17 so he’ll get back to me.
Jan 26, I call him. No answer.  No callback.
Feb 12, I email him. No answer.
Mar 2, I call him. No answer.  No callback.
Mar 6, I call him around 9:30 in the morning..  He answers!  Holy cow!  He tells me he’s “just looking at the pictures” and he can’t find the one of me with my babysitting girls.  Also, he says, “this has never happened before” but he can’t find anything of me and my mom.  He’s “never had to set that up before, it always happens naturally.”  I basically give up and say sweetly through my teeth, “Okay, well, everything else is great, so can you mail us the DVD?”  He says he’ll do that right away.
Mar 11, Silly me, I assumed “right away” meant he’d mail the DVD on Saturday, or Monday at the latest.  No DVD has shown up yet and shipping from San Francisco to San Bruno shouldn’t take long.  I email him asking if he’d sent it because I wanted to take it to my parents’ house over the weekend (not true).  He writes back saying he’s at a “wedding photography convention” in Las Vegas to get some new slick DVD cases that he likes.  He’ll overnight one to my parents’ address, if I’ll give it to him.  I give it to him (anything to get a copy of that DVD!).
Mar 12, In the morning he leaves me a voicemail saying he’s been to the post office, UPS, and FedEx and no one can get it there by Saturday.  I text him saying to just send it to me here.

Today we got home and there was a (granted, pretty slick) DVD case leaning against the door.  Which means he just brought it by and left it at some point today?  There are 2 DVDs inside, one saying in Sharpie, “Copy 1” and the other, “Copy 2.”  For needing to be placed in such a slick case, the DVDs are pretty unimpressive, but if I pop them into the computer and my wedding pictures exist thereon, everything will be forgiven (if not immediately forgotten).

So here it is, over 4 months later, and we have our pictures.  The next step is to upload all 600 onto some photo sharing-and-purchasing website, send the link to everyone, and then order the prints.  Now the only thing to kind of bother me is the fact that everyone else has that one great the-happy-couple-kissing-in-a-very-posed-manner-in-front-of-a-tree picture, and we, for some reason, have none of those.  I mean, we have lots of good candids and that’s what I wanted anyway, so it’s all good.  I just kind of miss not having that gazing-at-each-other-lovingly-in-front-of-a-pond picture.

Oh yeah, and I need to write that photographer a scathing review on Yelp.  My only question is, is this the kind of thing where I should warn him beforehand?  Or should I just cut into him via the faceless internet?  Major dilemma.