Speakers Corner: Couple married ten years ago still waiting for wedding photos

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This week, a couple from Waterdown, Ontario, is speaking out after nearly a decade of frustration. They’ve been waiting that long for hundreds of wedding photos they paid a professional photographer to shoot. They say the photographer has ghosted them, refusing to answer their calls, so they reached out to CityNews for help.

Luis and Jennifer Da Silva were married back in June 2011.

“It was a huge wedding. We had almost 300 people and it was a great celebration,” said Jennifer.

They paid a professional photographer, who Luis knew through work, nearly $5,000 to shoot their engagement and wedding photos. According to their invoice, the couple was to receive several items: a coffee table album, photo thank you cards, several engagement photos and the biggest item of all — a wedding album with more than 300 photos.

Today, nearly ten years later, they have only a CD with untouched photos, the coffee book album and one engagement photo.

“Even those items took years to get.” Jennifer said. “The coffee table album took six years and the engagement photo took four years.”

The thing they want most is their final wedding album.

“The album is supposed to have hundreds of retouched and edited pictures that we selected, he was just supposed to put that together and print it for us,” she said.

One year after not receiving anything, the Da Silvas started texting and calling the photographer.

“At first he said there were delays because of a family issue, so I backed off,” she said. “But as time went on he kept coming up with new excuses, then he just stopped returning our calls and texts and I am pretty sure he blocked my number.”

The couple asked CityNews to try and track him down. During our search, we discovered the photographer has an active website advertising services. Under previous work, he included what looked like touched up photos of the Da Silva’s wedding.

The couple had no idea he was using their wedding as part of his portfolio.

“I am shocked,” said Jennifer. “These are finished photos we wanted in our album. I can’t believe he’s using these on his website especially since we are not happy customers.”

We called the photographer while with the Da Silvas. At first he denied knowing them but then said he did. When we pressed him further asking about the album, he hung up.

“I’m surprised he answered, but not surprised he hung up,” said Jennifer.

About an hour after we left the couple’s home, the photographer, Rory Cabral, called us back and explained what happened to the photos.

“There was a major power surge in the studio that I no longer have and I lost probably a good chunk of 10 weddings and their wedding was within that hard drive failure,” he said.

Cabral claimed to have alerted the Da Silvas of this, but according to text messages they showed us, he was still promising them a final album.

“That was four years ago and since then he refused to respond,” said Jennifer.

After our phone call, Cabral promised us to make good. He said he will at least offer the couple a refund for the amount of the album.

But the Da Silvas say money won’t bring back what they lost.

“I just want my photo album. I want those memories that we paid for, that’s it,” said Jennifer.

At the very least, they hope their story helps other couples who are searching for a wedding photographer.

“Make sure the photographer has very good credentials and do backup on the work and call people who use them so you know what you’re getting into,” she said.

Have a story or issue you want us to investigate or look into? Send us your story here: citynews.ca/speakerscorner.