Getting even is not my thing but proving a liar is!
As many of you already know, Aruba is a wonderful destination for any special event. Aruba weddings have been blessed by so many couples throughout the 10 years that wedding destination have begun. The demand is high. For all that know me you know that I am an honest person with a passion at heart especially for my family and Aruba. In the past year many of us in the wedding sector in Aruba have been noticing that clients refer to a lower budget person on the island who has great deals and if we can match it. Well sorry to say but professionals stand by their product and quality comes first before cheap labor.I speak for my many friends, vendors and hotels in Aruba that have been loyal, ethical, professional and have carried their passion in this field to excellence at delivering the best they have to offer. It takes only one person to mess this up and make himself seem as if he is the eighth wonder of the world who hails at his profession. Let me begin by giving you a few hints.
I have to say that many brides believe in wedding reviews on so many
forums but lately there is a certain photographer that has been looked
into very closely due to the bashing of other professional vendors who
have been in the professional wedding business for 9+ years and using
his name as the person who saved the day. on the forum as a fake review.
He has only been in the business for 1 year and
has used the different forums to get his brides when they post a
question regarding an Aruba wedding. He tells them that he has the best
prices and if they pay cash than he will give them a bigger discount. He
lures these brides into believing his company stands above the rest
when in turn he just got another sap to believe his every word. He takes
them away from the wedding planner at the resort that they have booked
and gives false prices about actual vendors when in return he uses
different companies that are unknown to chamber of commerce or are just an amateur with skills of only playing in their garage or a gig. I work with over 50 vendors or more who are
all part of the wedding industry of Aruba, who are upset that their names are falsely put on aruba.com forum to stray away any leads in using a certain person. This certain photographer is banned from
almost all resorts and the review board at Aruba.com is on top of his
fake ip addresses. What I have seen with my own eyes will shock anyone
of how many ip's are from just his studio. It is a shame that he can use
the web to pretend that he is a premier photographer/videographer/planner when in
reality he is using unqualified kids in high school and as young as 15 year old as his crew members. He does not stand by his product and delivers unedited
images, his videos have had numerous attacks on the end results, He posts very few images that are edited for the world to believe he is a pro but in all honesty he has his young kids who gets paid minimum wage to work 12 hour shifts in fixing , editing the image and taking credit for someone's image with maybe a creative eye.I have many
brides that are coming forward to speak up and put a stop to this so called professional. I do not name him as it will surface as fast as he made himself falsely known. I am using this blog as well as Facebook to make sure people get the idea of what a
scam artist he is.
Feel free to post who you think it is, If you have been private messaged or approached from this giant troll and lets
use the peoples voices and reviews to make sure he is stopped with
anything and everything that whispers through the internet.
7 comments:
Aruba.com has a real review from a real bride and it was taken down today before people can read what lacks in Aruba. I have copied in this bride's post so everyone can see what many have fought in Aruba the past few years of unreliable say so professionals.
Ever After Aruba/Jason Margarita Review
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Apologies for the very lengthy review, but we feel obliged to be comprehensive and support with full details.
We were married in beautiful Aruba in September 2012, and after 4 ½ months we are finally able to say the "wedding stuff" is over and can write a full review. I will begin by rating our wedding planner team in terms of the stages of the wedding, using the old school grading system and will follow with the rationale for the grade.
Pre-booking of Wedding Date: A+
Wedding Planning: B–
Wedding and Dealings in Aruba: C–
Post-Wedding: F
Pre-booking of Wedding Date
After communicating with several independent and one hotel wedding planner, we decided to choose Jason and Ever After Aruba to handle our day--planning, setup, photography and videography. The choice was based on research, reviews, responsiveness and cost, and we began planning a year and a half in advance. We knew that our wedding was going to be small (12 guests) and quickly figured out what we wanted for everything. We decided to have both the town hall and beach blessing ceremonies in Aruba. Jason was very impressive at this stage, as he was responsive to all of my emails and answering all of my questions very quickly, which helped us to settle on many of the details in pretty short order. So over the course of the year and a half, there were peaks and valleys in the actual planning work. It is important to note that Jason handled all communications, and that Evita/Julissa was silent during this process, although she was copied on all correspondence.
Wedding Planning
Once we told Jason that we wanted to hire them, we needed to pay a deposit one year in advance and sign the contract. I asked for the contract several times and even posted a question to this forum regarding my difficulties in getting the "signed" contract. I got it after that post, which was a little unsettling, as it shouldn’t take a public post to get it.
After discussing beach locations and viewing pictures, we decided that we wanted our beach ceremony to be between the Fofoti trees on Eagle Beach. We chose Reverend Diane Keijzer, and had to make arrangements with her personally, since Jason didn’t work directly with her. I gave them a general color scheme and idea for flowers, picked specific chairs and canopy, and a cake flavor with no specific decoration ideas. We also arranged for a steel pan player at the beach and the dinner reception at Passion’s. After further research about the public beaches, I later inquired about how we could ensure that we received that location, and was assured that he "received the permit and finalized the confirmation for the location" six months before our wedding.
For the Civil Ceremony, we had to mail copies of our documents one year in advance to Jason’s Civil Coordinator, in order to get our date and time scheduled. There were some disconnects in email with that Civil Coordinator which eventually got resolved, but took quite a bit of communication to get there.
Communication over the planning period was pretty good, but not as great as it was before we booked with them. Over the course of the year and a half of planning, there were three periods of unresponsiveness (over one week) from Jason. Each time he claimed that my emails were going to his "junk" mail. I don’t believe this, as we had been in communication for a long time, and I should have been in his contacts to prevent this from happening. One occurrence was one month before our wedding, and that caused me great worry and stress. We even considered forfeiting our deposit and finding another planner, since we were feeling that we weren’t receiving the great level of service that I had read so much about. I eventually connected with him via Facebook.
Jason did a terrific job in assisting us in getting our OOT bag items to Aruba. He provided a U.S. address that we shipped the package to, and he arranged to get them to Aruba from there. The package got there much quicker than anticipated and once we arrived in Aruba, Jason had them delivered to our hotel.
We had to send our original documents one month in advance. Once they were picked up, I notified Jason of the anticipated delivery date, and tracked the package diligently. The first two attempts were unsuccessful, as nobody was there to sign for the package, and I had to reach out to them to let them know that they could pick up or it was going to be sent back, which they ultimately did.
Wedding and Dealings in Aruba
We arrived in Aruba 4 days before our wedding, and met with Jason and Julissa two days before. The meeting is when the "real" planning took place. We went over all of the details again. When it came to discussing the location, Jason hinted that he might not be able to get the location between the Fofoti trees that we had chosen. He said that someone from his team was going to get there at 9am the day of our wedding to see if it was available. While I was very upset about it, I chose not to say anything, as there wasn’t much I could do about it at that point. After all, we were there to get married and the location wasn’t going to change that. Jason also notified us at this time, that the steel pan player had doubled his price and offered us to either pay more money or cut the time down to one hour. I was blind sided by this news, and made the hasty decision to cut the time in half. That ended up to be a bad decision, because we didn’t realize that by doing so, we would not have our "first dance", since our song was supposed to be played through the steel pan player’s speaker. We are upset with Jason about this, because as our planner, he should have thought of this. Jason also went over the break down of our 4 hours of photography/videography, which was to include video of our hotel grounds, town hall time, me and my husband getting ready for the beach (at separate hotels), beach ceremony coverage and trash the dress shoot. At the time, I thought it was odd to include coverage of our hotel grounds, and I wasn’t really interested in having it, but dismissed it as something they normally do. When they showed up to my room while I was getting ready for the beach ceremony, he said that they took the video of the hotel grounds before they came to my room. Again, odd, but I dismissed it as I had more important things to think about. At the trash the dress shoot, days later, Jason informed me that if I wanted the RAW video and pictures (as stated on my invoice), that I had to go buy an external hard drive, which was NOT stated on my invoice. It was $100 and an inconvenience.
Once I got to see the RAW video, there was NO coverage of the hotel grounds. I only mention this, because it appears that it was a method to cut out some of their time spent on video coverage. In hind sight, taking all of the this into consideration, it seems that they felt that the quote they had provided a year and a half earlier was too low, and they had to find small ways to get more bang for their buck.
The Civil Ceremony was great, and we loved it! Jason and Julissa took video and pics of us with our guests afterwards. One of Jason’s assistants provided transportation for us. Half way back to the hotel, she informed us that we had to go back, because she had Julissa’s keys. This cost us time that we didn’t have, as we planned to have our ceremonies very close together, so our guests didn’t have to wait a long time in between.
My husband was getting ready at another hotel, so Jason had his assistants there taking video and pictures. My husband was wearing very simple clothes, so there wasn’t much substance to cover. My husband called it "a joke". Again in hindsight, the assistants could have been a little more creative, and came up with ways to get pictures of a little more substance, such as taking them to the hotel bar, casino or on the hotel grounds.
Allan Kock was at our hotel room doing hair and make up for me, my mother and MOH. He was great! It went very smooth. The trial for the hair and make up did not. We had changed our hotel room, and Jason did not provide him with our new room number, which caused Allan to be over two hours late and I was running around our hotel trying to find him. That created a headache, as we were then late for our mani-pedi appointments, and running short on time to meet with family members arriving.
Once I was ready for the beach ceremony, on time, Jason told me that the guys were not ready, and that I had to wait. That turned out to be not true, as they were already at the beach waiting. Jason had previously told me at our meeting that I should be sure to arrive late, to create excitement. I did not agree and did not want to be late, causing our guests to have to sit in the heat on the beach. We left my room and headed towards the car, and Jason said we had to go back to the room because Julissa left her keys in my room. I didn’t have my room key (my husband accidentally took both keys in the chaos), so I had to stop at the desk and get one. They went back to the room, only to realize that the keys were in her pocket! Another unnecessary delay. Arriving late caused us to miss some of the sunset for our pictures, which is very upsetting to us.
They did a great job on the beach set up. The flowers, canopy and chairs were exactly as we had requested and it was beautiful. However, we did not get the location between the Fofoti trees, and it was empty! I fully understood early on that the beach was public, and that we might not be able to get that spot, but Jason ensured us that we had the spot reserved. When I met with Reverend Diane before the wedding, she mentioned that there was someone that Jason was supposed to contact to get the spot, so I’m not sure what the truth is. But the reality is that we did not get what we were told we were going to have for location.
Another thing worth mentioning here is the attire that Jason and Julissa wore for our wedding. Jason wore jeans and a sport jacket and Julissa wore jeans and a t-shirt. At the time, it didn’t matter much to me and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. However, the next day my MOH called me, and she saw Jason and Julissa working another wedding-all dressed up! I never discussed with them what their attire would be, as I thought it was common sense to look professional.
We did a trash the dress shoot a couple of days later. We were originally scheduled for an early afternoon shoot, but Jason managed to accommodate a sunset shoot to try to make up for what we missed at the wedding. We had certain pictures in mind that we wanted to capture, but when we asked about it at our meeting, he simply stated that he had it covered. We had fun and got a couple cool pictures out of it-but didn’t get some that we had hoped for. We tipped Jason and team ~10% instead of the planned 20%, which we now fully regret.
Post-Wedding By far, the most frustrating experience we had with Jason and Julissa was getting our video and picture book. When we met with Jason before we left, I asked how long it would take to get the picture book and video, and he told me 2-3 weeks. I began emailing him about a month later to inquire about the status. I either received no response or excuses. I was first told that the server was full, then told that it was delayed because of the U.S. elections, then Hurricane Sandy, then that they were busy, then that they had their own wedding and honeymoon to catch up from, etc. In late November, I contacted our credit card issuer to enlist their help in getting our goods. They contacted Jason and applied some pressure, and Jason gave them the same list of excuses. Julissa then eventually provided me a link to the video. In early January, I still did not receive them, and filed an official dispute for the value of the goods not received. The credit card issuer then contacted Ever After Aruba with an official letter of the value of the dispute with a 45 day period to provide the goods. We finally received our picture book in late January and the video this week. The picture book and video are fine. I didn’t have them to show relatives over the holidays as we thought that we would. Also, I don’t know how most brides feel after the wedding, but I know for me it all happened so fast, that I barely remembered it. So, I really felt the need to have the video, so I could relive the moment. Instead, I spent months of waking up in the middle of the night worrying about never getting the video of the most important day of our lives and feeling that we had been swindled.
In summary, we had a gorgeous wedding. Because it was in ARUBA. It could have been better if we had received better service.
Here is my review of this photographer posted today on Aruba.com - please help:
While I can say that our vow renewal experience was heart warming and touching to my husband and I, the experience after has been nothing but stressful. Despite my grandmother passing away on our vow renewal date, we tried to make the best of a difficult and sad situation.
For months prior to our vow renewal, I sent photo after photo to Jason and his team. I wanted to capture an intimate romance between my husband and I. I didn't want cookie cutter images that everyone poses for. I wanted special images. I can say that I like a handful of images, but I was not happy with the experience at all. Jason even stated that I had a great eye for photography, so I thought he would enjoy recreating some of the images I selected. However, I was wrong. Jason's response via email was that my husband and I were too big, too pale, too red, and that my husband wasn't in to the entire experience of photographs, so that is why our images turned out the way that they did.
On our TTD day, I believe that Jason and his team were almost an hour late in picking us up for our images. It just was not organized, even though I gave months and months of preparation. A great photographer can make images work. It shouldn't have mattered what size we were or what color our skin was, but it should have been made clear to us that some of our images would be a bit different than I anticipated because my vision was too elaborate, etc. On our last day, the person was late bringing us our disc and we were late getting to the airport for our return flight home. Once I got home and loaded the images, I realized that I was only happy with a few images. I immediately contacted Jason and his team to express my unhappiness and that is when I was met with the insults about us being too big, too pale, too red, and that my husband was not into the pictures and did not want to move. My husband would move heaven and earth for me and would do anything for me, but he was grieving as was I for the loss of my grandmother. I don't believe anyone took that in to consideration during this time frame.
His contract states that I would have my images with 2-4 weeks. As you can see, at this point we are already passed that time frame. Months go by without a word from Jason or his team, I follow up almost every month regarding a status update with no response. I finally received a response this week, because I told his team that contacted the Consul General for Aruba, the Aruba Chamber of Commerce, and Aruba.com. They are reviewing my case and will get back to me – ugh! I'm just at my wit's end, and I'm not sure what else to do. My husband and I are moving in two weeks and I'd love for this to be cleared up by then, but I don't see that happening. Has anyone else had a similar situation? Can you offer me any advice? Please help!
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