My experience with katharinekimball.com wedding photography (missing deliverables, outdated gallery, and concerning handling of issues)
I paid $2,550 for my wedding photography through the business operating at katharinekimball.com, and I want future couples to understand my full experience because I genuinely wish someone had warned me.
The online gallery system she uses is extremely outdated and barely functional. It took me eight attempts to download my own wedding photos — and I am a software engineer on gigabit fiber. The issue was not my internet connection; the gallery server she uses repeatedly failed. The USB in the package was supposed to be the backup in case the gallery failed (and it nearly did).
That USB never arrived.
It was shipped through USPS without insurance or tracking options that allow recourse. USPS told me directly that they could not help. When I informed the photographer — multiple times — that the USB had never arrived and that the gallery was malfunctioning, I was told to pay $68.95 for a replacement. Even if inflated, that’s only 2.7% of the $2,550 I already paid her.
The refusal to replace a missing deliverable that costs a few dollars to produce felt shockingly unprofessional and unexpectedly stingy. Her statement that she was “not able” to replace it was not true — she was fully capable but simply unwilling.
Here is why this matters:
If her outdated gallery had completely failed (which it nearly did), and the USB never arrived (which it didn’t), I would have had zero wedding photos after paying thousands of dollars. No reputable photographer should leave clients with that level of risk.
Update:
More than a month after the supposed “delivery,” USPS located the package elsewhere and I finally received it. I emailed the photographer to let her know. In her response (which I have attached to this review), she doubled down — blaming me for USPS’ mistake, implying I had not done my “due diligence,” and suggesting I should reconsider my review.
For context:
We had already called USPS multiple times and gone to the post office in person. USPS had told us there was no recourse. None of that should fall on the client. A professional vendor takes responsibility for their shipments, insures them, and advocates for the client — they do not assign blame when something goes wrong.
Additional context that concerned me further:
My wedding venue — who initially recommended her — told me afterward that they had already removed her from their preferred vendor list independently of my situation due to repeated issues they had experienced with her. According to them, my wedding was the last event she would be photographing at that venue.
Finally, after I posted my review, she threatened legal action against me despite having no grounds. This only reinforced the pattern I personally experienced:
When problems arise, instead of taking responsibility, she becomes defensive and blames the client.
For a once-in-a-lifetime event like a wedding, that is not a risk I would ever take again