GRAND FORKS – On his TV each day discuss present, Dr. Phil McGraw, a famous psychologist, invitations viewers who’ve an issue they’d like assist with, to contact his present.
Final fall, when Bryce and Brianne O’Neill – avid followers of the Dr. Phil present – heard that invitation, they each thought, “what if we wrote in to Dr. Phil?” Brianne stated.
The Grand Forks couple is amongst a whole bunch of engaged {couples} who employed Glasser Photos, a Bismarck enterprise, to {photograph} or videotape their weddings. Glasser Photos was a big operation that used about 150 subcontractors to shoot wedding ceremony occasions throughout North Dakota and in different states.
When the enterprise folded in October, The O’Neills and different {couples} have been instructed they’d not obtain any of their photos or movies – nor any refund of funds they’d already made.
The O’Neills have been apprehensive concerning the obvious lack of photographs from their wedding ceremony day, July 10, 2021, in Grand Forks. And pissed off that they, and different {couples}, weren’t getting any response, or their photographs, from Glasser Photos.
“We went on-line and we submitted one thing to Dr. Phil,” Brianne stated. “And we thought, how loopy would that be? Possibly we may get it on TV to assist, not solely us, however all the different {couples}, too, get our photos again and provides it nationwide consideration.”
After contacting the Dr. Phil present on-line, “to our shock, they acquired ahold of us,” Brianne stated. “They went by the entire course of” of requesting copies of contracts, information articles and different info, she stated. “They did loads of analysis on it to ensure all the things was really what we have been saying.”
The couple have been invited to look on the Dr. Phil present in March, and the episode – which captured the largest shock of their lives – was aired Might 16.
Glasser Photos was well-known within the wedding ceremony pictures enterprise, Bryce O’Neill stated. “We had seen them at loads of weddings we attended.”
The O’Neills had deliberate the date of their wedding ceremony round when a Glasser Photos photographer was out there, Bryce stated. “That was two years out.”
Wedding ceremony pictures is “very costly,” he stated. “And it is the one factor folks actually, actually need.”
He and Brianne have been shocked after they realized Glasser Photos shut down and they’d not be getting their photographs or a refund of the $5,000 they’d paid upfront.
“We have been extra shocked than something instantly,” Bryce stated. “It is a type of issues that simply does not occur.”
At first, the O’Neills thought that, though the enterprise closed, they’d nonetheless obtain their photographs, Bryce stated. “I believed, a few weeks and we’ll get them again.” They later realized that Glasser Photos subcontracted with numerous photographers and videographers, he stated. “And they’re separate from Glasser Photos.”
The O’Neills additionally realized that, when the enterprise closed down, Glasser Photos staff merely left work and “all the images have been dumped in a single place,” with out figuring out info, Bryce stated, so it was troublesome to find out “whose photos have been whose .”
“They stole our recollections from us,” Brianne stated. She remembers questioning, “what if they do not recuperate them and perhaps they have been deleted, they usually’re gone.”
“You have to keep constructive,” Bryce remembered pondering on the time. “However you simply do not know. There was loads of crying.”
“It is such a horrible feeling,” he stated. “This, perhaps, sounds sexist, however each feminine desires photos from her wedding ceremony day.”
To make issues worse, he and Brianne had instructed their friends to place away their cellphones, that the skilled photographer could be capturing all the images. In order that they did not have photographs of many moments – such because the bride together with her dad and mom, grandparents and bridesmaids – that others may need shot, Brianne stated.
For months, the O’Neills had stored in fixed contact, reaching out to Glasser Photos and to the photographer who shot their wedding ceremony. The photographer, who had not backed up the marriage photos, instructed them that his contract with Glasser Photos required him to submit all his photographs to that enterprise.
The O’Neills, who solely acquired 10 “sneak peak” photographs from their wedding ceremony day, felt they needed to be persistent.
“It is scary. In case you do not stay on high of it, you are by no means going to get your photographs again. You assume they’re going to sort of neglect about you,” Bryce stated. “If we would not have stayed on high of it, it will’ve been years earlier than we would have seen, and even heard about, our photographs.”
Complain with legal professional common
These {couples} who felt they have been scammed fashioned a Fb group to share info, fee and talk about their choices. Bryce estimates that greater than a thousand {couples} “have been caught on this scenario.”
They filed a criticism with the North Dakota Lawyer Normal’s Workplace, which is working to owe the mess. Brianne stated she feels the legal professional common’s workplace “is doing their finest” to acquire justice for the {couples}.
This previous spring, a federal choose in Georgia ordered Glasser Photos to pay nearly $1 million in a lawsuit related to the bank card dispute involving former shoppers.
The O’Neills’ look on the Dr. Phil present has helped to lift public consciousness of the issue Glasser Photos created, Bryce stated. “There’s solely a lot folks can do. Now (with the Dr. Phil present) you are getting consideration from the world.”
Showing on the Dr. Phil present was “an enormous step” that he hopes will lead to extra {couples} getting their photographs again, Bryce stated.
The O’Neills have been flown to Hollywood in March to movie the present and the episode was aired on Might 16. All of the journey bills have been paid by the Dr. Phil exhibits.
Throughout filming, they have been introduced with a hard-cover guide. When she opened it, Brianne first noticed the ten “sneak peak” photographs she’d acquired earlier from Glasser Photos. However as she stored turning the pages, she found the guide contained all of their wedding ceremony photographs. “It was a shock,” she stated. “I burst into tears.”
“She was crying and I used to be shocked,” Bryce stated. “I used to be shocked she was crying on nationwide TV.”
However he was “not completely stunned” on the flip of occasions,” he stated, as a result of “Dr. Phil helps so many individuals.”
Dr. Phil and his workers had managed to safe the photographs, with the assistance of an Atlanta-based agency referred to as ShootProof, for the O’Neills. Dr. Phil had sworn to silence everybody engaged on the present to not inform the O’Neills the shock that was in retailer for them.
Brianne recalled the girl who styled Brianne’s hair earlier than the present saying, “perhaps Dr. Phil will provide you with one other wedding ceremony,” she stated. “I instructed her, effectively, that might be good, however we simply need our photos.”
