Sean Riffenburg

Review of Little Church of the West

BUYER BEWARE: PLEASE READ

BUYER BEWARE: PLEASE READ

All I ask from a business is to be honest in your dealings with others. When you aren t, it may lead to short-term financial gains, but there are also other implications to be had...in small part, a google review like mine:

Our wedding was last week, and we chose this church for a reason. It s truly iconic, the location is beautiful, and the staff was fantastic. I don t need to convince anyone of that. You can discern that from all the other reviews.

With that said, people also choose this place because it s an inexpensive alternative to having a large-scale wedding. The price we paid was for the $395 wedding package. Quite the bargain to runaway and elope in a place as magical as Vegas. We were told, as part of the package, there would be a $100 credit towards the purchase of photos of the ceremony. In follow-up phone correspondence, we asked for clarity, and were told we would be able to purchase the photos we wanted and utilize our credit. In retrospect, the conversation was intentionally vague. As most logical people would be led to assume, it would be an a la carte purchase, and that was our mindset going in, that we would only purchase about THAT amount, or a little over for a few of the best photos from the ceremony.

Fast forward to the wedding day. It was absolutely fantastic. Everything went as planned, in fact, in many ways, it was better than expected. The photo shoot at the end was terrific, and the photographer was both professional and humorous. At the conclusion, he led us to a small room, wedding dress and suit on, and we were told there were 108 usable photos and were presented with three packages to choose from. Each one had its own bells and whistles, and I can t regurgitate the details here, but they ranged from the $500 range to the $300 range, AFTER our, $100, credit. Might I add, we were NEVER shown these options in advance...this was the first time seeing them. We were asked to decide immediately in his presence, with the assumption that if we don t choose one of the three, you get no photos at all. I can t imagine how many people had to go that route. After a few minutes, naturally, as I m sure many have also done, we chose to go with the most expensive package, which with tax, came to about $600.

The question I want answered: why aren t you honest and share the details of this package in advance? Never mind, I know the answer: you know exactly what you are doing, and I m quite certain you ve perfected the entire process. I read in another review where the owner responded with, the packages are found in the FAQ section of their website. Why is that never mentioned in any correspondence? Price and packages is a pretty big thing to leave out. In my opinion it s slimy, shady, greedy, manipulative, and in many ways exposes the dark underbelly of Vegas for what it s capable of being...crooked. I know it s a one-time purchase, and return customers aren t your thing, but who you are and how you run your business is a reflection of what you stand for, as well as the people who run the day-to-day operations. It was no big deal for us, sure the wallet was $600 lighter, and we got more photos and even a video that we didn t expect, but I can t stop thinking of how many people must have been in that office who didn t have the extra money. Of all the days in someone s life to play the role of crook, outside of their funeral, I d say the wedding day is one to keep your greedy, pilfering hands out of.

From a business perspective, my recommendation would be to immediately change how you present the purchase of photos to paying customers. It may seem paradoxical, but if you tell people what to expect up front, they would be even more than willing to pay a higher price rather than tricking them into getting a little extra cash. To paraphrase, do the right thing.

To top it off, they had the audacity to ask me to write a Google review. I suppose Sinatra said it best when he said, that s life, and in life, what goes around, comes around.