Jonilyn Photography

I would have loved to give Jonilyn 5 stars... but again... LACK of COMMUNICATION is bringing her business down.
I literally was HUNTING her down to get her pricing and see if she was available for our date. She responded to my email 3 weeks later stating she was veyr busy.... which is a good sign for a wedding photographer.
We hired Jonilyn to shoot our wedding. We did an engagement session with her and the photos turned out beautiful. She is very sweet in person and professional. It took a good 2 months to receive our engagement photos.... There was not much communication before the wedding other than we HOPED that she was going to show up. She did... on time... and again, was very sweet and easy going. She even stayed till the very end, beyond contracted hours.
I requested a few shots of certain things to be taken at the wedding, for the most part she did take those shots...however, there were some they she did not take or at least did not provide (even though I requested them AFTER the wedding but no response)
We got our digital photos 1.5 months after the wedding.... that's after me placing a few emails asking for the photos. Even though, JOnilyn never replied.... her assistant did.
Our wedding photos were gorgeous and we are very happy with the end product. But we have been left with a "bad taste" in our mouth... feeling as if she didn't want to shoot our wedding or something.
Our advise to Jonilyn: You are EXTREMELY talented, however your business tactics need much improvement. If you want to be successful in this business, please refocus and take full responsibility - communicating with your clients is AS important as your talent.

Jonilyn deserves ZERO stars. She is unprofessional and unorganized. It took her days, if not weeks, to respond to any emails. She allegedly hired an assistant but it didn't help. She was late for our initial meeting and I should've seen it as a sign. But I was convinced that she was the photographer we had to have for our wedding.

She sent me the contract and an invoice. I was about to send her the deposit electronically when I received another email that basically said, "Oops, I thought you were [Mary]. I'm actually booked on your date with [Mary]." Yes, I have a common name but you FORGOT you were already booked? She offered an engagement session to make up for the misunderstanding. We decided on a date, place, and time -but she didn't even show up!

It's been nearly a year since this happened. My wedding day has come and gone and it went perfectly - without Jonilyn. I'm so glad we did not book her. I WOULD NOT recommend her to anyone looking for a good photographer.

I am very disappointed in the professionalism that Jonilyn displayed during process of selecting her as our photographer. If you are considering Jonilyn, I encourage you to read our experience below.

Our first attempt at a face-to-face failed; she thought we were meeting on Tuesday, when instead it was supposed to be a Monday. She offered us a substantial discount if we still were will to consider her for our wedding. Eventually we rescheduled for a few weeks later when she was back in town. This meeting went well (at least from our perspective), and with the discount, we decided to choose Jonilyn as the photographer for our wedding. Except now we can't get a hold of her!

Despite several phone calls and emails, we received no response. During this period we could see that she was actively blogging on her website, so obviously she was around. Obviously she decided that for whatever reason (didnt want to offer the discount, didn't like us during the meeting, etc) that she didn't want to be our photographer. Her method of resolving the situation was to completely ignore us, and lead us on for another week while we waited for a response.

As I mentioned in the beginning - extremely unprofessional, and a waste of time for both parties. If you are not interested in being our photographer, a simple "no thanks" email would have been sufficient after our last meeting. The lack of her answering the phone was also very frustrating; perhaps if you choose her as your photographer she will put your number in her phone so that she knows to answer.

Jonilyn definitely deserves 5 stars! Her and her husband went above and beyond on my wedding day, despite what a nervous wreck I was. They were not only there for over 11 hours, but she gave me advice when I asked her questions on my finishing touches like veil placement and too much lipstick. She is the most accomodating, vibrant, easy going vendor I had and I can't wait until I have another opportunity to take pictures with her again! Although I haven't received my wedding pictures back, I can say my engagement photos were amazing. She accomodated my hectic schedule and was paitient when I was running late. Thinking back, she was so discrete and respectful of my Catholic churches list of regulations. She made me feel at ease around her and not nervous or self concious. Not to mention, in comparison to her work, she is VERY affordable.

After reading her blog, I couldn't believe she just got started in wedding photography. I contacted her immedaitely and was happy to learn that her prices were in our budget. She seemed very sweet, but rarely responded to my emails. I had to email her a few times to get her to respond. I didn't want to have to worry about a photographer no-show, so I gave up.

Another disappointed bride here. We had our engagement shoot with Jonilyn, and our photos turned out great, but like many other brides, I experienced a total lack of communication on the part of Jonilyn right from the get go. I was (needless to say) very worried about our wedding. I'm not sure that I ever heard back from her before our wedding day to confirm, although she did show up.

It took us 3 months to get our digital wedding photos from Jonilyn, and closer to 8 months for the wedding album. I would email and call her often, with no response. When she did finally get back to me, she apologized saying that she'd hired an assistant to help her handle her growing business. Although her assistant did speed up the response time, it left an overall bad taste in my mouth.


She needs to step up her professionalism and at least write back to her brides letting them know what's going on. She is a very gifted photographer, but unfortunately her complete lack of professionalism is unacceptable. She should be ashamed...especially since she was a bride not too long ago herself, and knows firsthand the stress of planning a wedding.

Update! I received our pictures, and although most of them turned out great, I am a bit upset about the fact that the formal bridal party pictures (don't get me started on the fact she told me that she would scout an area so we could take bridal party pics before the ceremony at a local park since our ceremony was indoors in a hotel, well needless to say, she didn't and we ended up taking them in the hotel) anyways I am looking at the photos and one of our groomsman had forgotten that he sunglasses were on top of his head, yes all of the pics are with his glasses on his head. She didn't see this through the lens? Or when she was setting up the shot? Isn't that what a professional photographer does? Are they not suppose to be the "eyes" in making sure formal portraits look nice and clean and neat? Then there's the jacket issues, all of the the groomsmen jackets are bunched up in the chest area. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

We are entering week 8 since our wedding and the contract states 4-5 weeks after event that we would have our pictures. I chose Jonilyn based on referrals from other brides. I should have realized from the very beginning that their might be problems when it took her forever to communicate back with me regarding packages and pricing. I went ahead and hired Jonilyn, I started calling her and emailing her to get confirmation about 2 weeks prior to my wedding day, no response, I was a bit worried, but was told from other brides, that she does show up, which she did on time. The day was very busy, and for the most part she was very unobtrusive while taking pictures. Although sometimes, I wished she would have focused a bit more on the formal pictures, with a bit more direction she is suppose to be the proffessional. My problem is since the wedding, she has been very difficult to get a hold of, does not return emails, promised the pictures to me weeks ago and still nothing. I am about ready to turn this over to our attorney.

If Jonilyn got her act together, she would be a great photographer, her pictures are awesome, I just can't recommend her because of the way she handles her business. If you are in a service industry, you MUST treat your clients like gold. That is how you grow your business REFERRALS are what it is all about.

Jonilyn was the sole photographer for our wedding reception, and she did an awesome job. She was there early, fully prepared and ready to go; she spent a lot of time setting up some great portraits of us, and also got some awesome shots of our friends & families. She was great to work with - professional, fun, & friendly - and delivered some truly exceptional pictures. Seriously, the shots were amazing and some of them could have been magazine covers (all due to the photographer's skill, and my wife/bride being photogenic - not to me). She's an incredibly talented photographer, and we were lucky to find her. If you're looking for a truly stellar photographer, we highly recommend Jonilyn. Highly, highly recommended.

I am extremely disappointed by Jonilyn. I had looked at her website several times and absolutely loved her pictures so I decided to contact her. I contacted her for the first time 3 weeks ago to ask for her wedding packages and pricing and she did not respond. So I emailed her again a week later, since most of the other photographers I had contacted emailed me back within 24hrs. She did not respond to my second email as well.
I then went to her website to see if she was out of town (to give her the benefit of the doubt) and she was actively blogging and posting pictures of recent events she had attended, which means she would have had time to at least check her email and respond back to prospective clients. Another week went by and I decided to email her one last time, to see about getting pricing and still nothing.
At this point even if she did respond to me, I would not hire her simply based on the fact that if she is this unresponsive now to prospective clients imagine how hard it is to get a hold of her throughout the planning process. I would NOT recommend this vendor to any bride. It's stressful enough planning a wedding, and the last thing you need is unattentive vendors especially with something like photography which is such an important part of the wedding. Look elsewhere brides!

Jonilyn is an incredibly talented photographer with an incredible eye for details. We worked with her as our "details" photographer and are so impressed with every photo she took-- the details of our florals, dresses, decor, etc to group shots and guest reactions. Her photos far surpassed those of our "main" photographer in quality, artistic talent and capturing the raw emotion of our wedding day. I cannot express in words alone how overjoyed I am to have worked with her! She is professional, attentive, creative and diligent. We will work with her again for other parties and family moments. My brother has already hired her for his wedding! Jonilyn's work speaks for itself and I 100% highly recommend her to other Brides without hesitation.