Weddings are expensive, especially for young couples paying for it themselves. But North Arlington resident Gina Gonick was determined not to let money stop her and her husband from getting the best photography services available to capture their special day. "I would not skimp on my pictures," said Gina Gonick.
The Gonicks shelled out $4,750 for Morris County-based Celebration Studios to film and shoot their May 2006 wedding. Their anniversary came and went, and the couple has yet to receive their photo albums and portraits. All they have are six botched up DVDs and proofs of their photos. Celebration Studios now has a "For Lease" sign in the window and neither the owner nor any employees have returned their phone calls.
In November, Mark Gonick searched the Internet for information on the company, leading him to a Yahoo! chat group called "Wronged by Celebrations." The online message board, which now has over 400 members, has posts from dozens of brides, grooms and former employees griping about Celebration Studios.
The stories from brides and grooms are mostly the same. Friends, family members and wedding planning Web sites highly recommended the company. Couples would pay up front in full for photography and videography services in the thousands.
Customers reported waiting months, and sometimes years, for design sessions to fine-tune their wedding albums, portraits and DVDs. However, Celebration Studios warned them it could take months to schedule a design session. The Gonicks married in May 2005 and had their design session in October 2006.
The designer said the photos and video would be ready in six to eight months. By May 2007, the next wedding season started and it took until August 2007 before the Gonicks saw anything. Pieces of their product filtered in, but were not done according to the Gonicks’ instructions. The first draft of their wedding video had the theme music to the Sopranos as background music, even though the company never consulted them about it. Another copy skipped incessantly while another still actually had footage of another couple.
Their frustrations peaked this month when they received a letter from Celebration Studios saying the company was restructuring and would reopen at a later date. On Jan. 12, Mark Gonick drove by the design studio in Clifton and found a "For Lease" sign in the window.
"My brother’s getting married next month and I’m sure he’ll have his photos before me," said Mark Gonick.
Eva Barrett, also a North Arlington bride, hired Celebration Studios to capture her wedding after two friends recommended them in 2002 and 2003. "There was no doubt in my mind we were gonna use them," she said.
Back in January 2006, Barrett booked Celebration Studios to shoot her wedding. Like the Gonicks, she was offered a 20 percent discount to pay the full amount, $4,876.26, in full, which was not unusual. "A lot of vendors ask you to pay up front," she said.
She was married on Nov. 18, 2006 and picked up the proofs of her wedding photos in March 2007. In April, she gave Celebration Studios her favorite picks and did not hear back from them for months.
However, she heard the company was very popular and it was not unusual for them to take a long time to finish working on photos. She called Celebration Studios and was told the company was restructuring, but the photos would be done by her one-year anniversary in November.
November came and went and by December, Barrett contacted owner Mark Schwartz’s attorney. The attorney told her she would receive her photos in three weeks. They never came.
Barrett joined the same "Wronged by Celebration Studios" chat group the Gonicks belonged to. The members of the chat group discovered that the Web site of another photography studio, Accent Pictures in Philadelphia, has the same design layout as Celebration Studios Web site. Also, members found out through social networking that Schwartz is involved with the woman who owns Accent Pictures.
The members now speculate that Accent Pictures was created by Schwartz to dodge his responsibilities to the customers and workers he cheated. "He’s going bankrupt and going under his girlfriend’s name," said Barrett.
Some of the couples wronged by Celebrations have taken action. A class action lawsuit filed in New York City charges Celebrations Studios with consumer fraud, breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress. An attorney is compiling information for a similar suit in New Jersey, according to Barrett.
The Gonicks filed their own civil suit against Celebration Studios, but fear if the company goes bankrupt, the wronged customers will have no restitution. The Gonicks are not seeking money, but want the photos and video they paid for. "I want my stuff and I want to be done with it," said Gina Gonick.
Leonard Kaufman, the attorney representing Celebration Studios, did not return e-mails from the South Bergenite. However, Barrett received an e-mail from the attorney last week stating the company is seeking bankruptcy and the court will appoint a trustee who will be in charge of distribution of lost photos.
Celebration Studios owes Bill West, a videographer from Philadelphia, just under $7,000 for work he did during the wedding season, according to West. He said he was offered a "litany of excuses," including being told brides and grooms did not hand in payments.
And West was not alone. Celebration Studios owes many of the 40-plus photographers and 20-plus viedographers for work done last wedding season. He discovered this after joining the Wronged by Celebrations Yahoo! group, which put him in touch with other workers like him who did not get paid for their work or reimbursed for expenses.
Stacey Weinberg, who owns Stacey Ilyse Studios in New York, interviewed with Celebration Studios three years ago and attributes the company’s failure to growing pains. "When a company becomes too big and it becomes less of a mom and pop or a boutique studio, it becomes overwhelming," said Weinberg. "It goes the same for any business."
