Bankrupt Wedding Photograph and Video Firm Owes $2.3 Million

There are many proficient, revered skilled marriage ceremony photographers and videographers. Lots of people do nice work for his or her purchasers and ship individuals with treasured images and movies from one of the vital particular days of their lives. However, as controversy after controversy has proven, the marriage picture/video trade can also be one rife with malice and scandal.

From exposés about faux shopper leads on large marriage ceremony planning platforms, to marriage ceremony photographers being sued by a state’s lawyer basic for failure to ship photos, to a vanishing act and internet of lies at a serious marriage ceremony pictures franchise, there isn’t any scarcity of individuals making an attempt to make the most of one another within the marriage ceremony trade, which is reportedly worth nearly $70 billion within the United States alone.

Enter Yours Truly Media, owned by Paul and Amy Bolton of Texas. This firm appeared on PetaPixel‘s radar a few months ago when photographers and videographers came forward, alleging that the company had failed to pay them.

In the time since, a lot has happened with Yours Truly Media, including the company going completely upside-down and filing for bankruptcy, as Boston 25 News reports, and leaving photographers, videographers, and clients in the lurch.

How Yours Truly Media Operated

Yours Truly Media, which still has a website but not an Instagram page, works (or worked) by having brides-and-grooms-to-be hire them for photography and videography services, and then Yours Truly Media would contract photographers and videographers in that local area to shoot the event. Although Yours Truly Media’s web site nonetheless exists, it’s price noting it lacks performance. Scheduling and get in touch with kinds are damaged, for instance.

The firm acted as a logistical intermediary, leveraging its once-broad on-line presence and trade awards to lift cash from clients, theoretically utilizing a few of that cash to pay individuals to do the precise work, after which taking the remainder.

This is usually a completely superb enterprise association. If all labored accurately, Yours Truly Media will get cash, {couples} get images and movies, and photographers and videographers receives a commission for his or her work with out having to cope with all the remainder of the stuff that comes from working an enormous marriage ceremony media firm.

Except on this case, that final half, paying the photographers and videographers, didn’t occur persistently or on time.

A Pattern of Late and Failed Payments

One nameless photographer informed PetaPixel that they began working for Yours Truly Media again in 2018-2019, and the corporate was already having points paying contractors.

“They always write their problems off as ‘COVID related,’ but even prior to COVID, they were struggling,” the photographer stated. “They have been crooks for years.”

The photographer famous, nevertheless, that their points had been restricted to cost. The precise marriage ceremony purchasers themselves had been nice. The photographer stopped working with the corporate in 2023 after repeated nonpayment points and was nonetheless owed cash when the corporate filed for chapter final month.

“When looking into the wedding field and considering subcontracting for a large-scale wedding company, I can’t stress enough how important looking up reviews are,” the photographer says, providing recommendation for others who wish to shoot weddings. “The obvious ones like Google, Yelp, WeddingWire, The Knot, but more important than all is Reddit. Go on that app and find first person experiences from other photographers in photo based groups. Reddit is where you will find truly scathing reviews of YTM.”

Reddit is replete with complaints, from photographers and likewise wedding clients.

“My experience with Yours Truly Media has been extremely poor, to be sure,” one other photographer, Becky MacDonald of Pretty Nerdy Photography, informed PetaPixel.

“I started as a second photographer for them in 2019 where I was a second shooter initially. A second shooter is the second photographer at a wedding mainly there to capture the groom prep, cocktail hour, and fill in any gaps in the lead’s coverage. [Yours Truly Media] reaches out to assign jobs and it’s mostly first come first served,” MacDonald continues.

“Then I was moved up to lead in early 2020 where I shot for them for two more years against my better judgement. They had issues paying people every year, so if you shot any weddings in the Fall or Winter you’re lucky to be paid by the following spring. All of us had contracts that stated we should be paid within a NET60 payout period so essentially 60 days from the invoice date. They broke their contracts with hundreds of photographers and videographers. Initially I was understanding when it happened in 2019, their excuse being that they expanded too quickly, then again in 2020 with the excuse of covid, but it kept happening EVERY year. In 2021 when they did it AGAIN I was officially done with them and sent an email with a payout timeline ultimatum. They still made me wait so I took initiative and fought back.”

MacDonald’s preventing again took the type of an internet site on which she put up screenshots of Yours Truly Media failing to pay individuals and her private experiences with the corporate.

MacDonald additionally equipped PetaPixel with intensive e mail communications between herself and Yours Truly Media, together with individuals in accounting and the corporate’s CEO, Paul Bolton.

After MacDonald arrange that web site as a result of she had tried and did not receives a commission for a lot of months, far past the NET60 phrases below which Yours Truly Media then operated, Bolton lastly responded to her. He stated that he and Yours Truly Media had been respectful the complete time, and that the corporate was not “intentionally trying to make things harder” for MacDonald or different contractors.

“You aren’t up front with your contractors when they sign the contracts. I have fallen prey to the lies and promises time and again that I will be paid in the contracted amount of time, and every year you do this. Why do you sign the contracts, when you know in advance, that you’re not going to be able to pay them? You put the onus of all Yours Truly Media’s bills on the contractors. We are the ones suffering, not you. And when we speak up about it you hit us with lie after lie or copy and pasted responses with manipulative language saying that WE are the ones with intent to harm,” MacDonald wrote to Bolton in November 2022.

“Our rents and bills and empty kitchen shelves do not care about your payment delays. I don’t need to share my sob story but I bet your accounting department has heard all of them. Why don’t you personally respond to all those emails from hundreds of us who have held up our end of the contract, only to be left having to scramble to make up the money we were counting on to continue living? It’s probably hard to remember what it is like living paycheck to paycheck since the town you live in has an an average home value of $3 million.”

To that, Bolton responded that he doesn’t dwell in an prosperous space and that he hadn’t acquired any wage from Yours Truly Media till all cost points had been resolved. This declare can’t be confirmed or disputed with out full forensic accounting.

Bolton then blamed the corporate’s cash issues on the federal authorities, COVID, and “the higher powers at be.”

“It’s as if the higher powers at be dont want me to win out of this matter. Do I have the team sign contracts knowing that we will be behind… no I dont. I cant get into the excuses of why I come to that reason, but you dont want to hear that… you want me to do what is right. Meg, did tell me how this has affected you personally and I feel terrible about that… but is all my motivation to not quit,” Bolton continued on this unedited quote. “I dont expect you to come up with ideas… but as much as no one wants to hear this… I will get this done… I will get you paid and everyone else as well.”

That was in November 2022, after the corporate had already did not pay individuals on time for years. The state of affairs didn’t enhance, although the corporate continued to function and obtain cash from purchasers.

Photographer and videographer Jon Sadrgilany had a contract with Yours Truly Media final 12 months for videography, promising a NET45 cost. Sadrgilany invoiced Yours Truly Media in late September for one job and in mid-October for a second. He was by no means paid.

“There were no significant red flags in the onboarding process. There were a few peculiarities that make more sense in hindsight though. I would periodically receive calls from a YTM worker to see if I was available for jobs on short notice. One time they even asked me if I could take a job in Wisconsin a few days out (I live in New Jersey) and didn’t offer to cover travel or other expenses. Now I realize they probably needed coverage for all of these jobs because other contractors were bailing on them due to nonpayment or risk of nonpayment,” Sadrgilany tells PetaPixel.

While Sadrgilany admits he needs he had completed extra analysis about Yours Truly Media earlier than taking up jobs with the corporate, he says he has by no means had any points with different comparable firms earlier than, and had no actual considerations.

Once Yours Truly Media was late and he began digging round, Sadrgilany discovered that he was removed from alone.

“It seems most contractors’ experiences are the same from the people I’ve spoken to. YTM either takes forever to pay or just doesn’t pay at all. In many cases, contractors have to file small claims suits or withhold photos or footage from subsequent weddings as leverage to be paid,” he says.

In some circumstances, contractors did finally receives a commission, simply illegally late.

However, most individuals Sadrgilany spoke to finally gave up making an attempt and chalked it as much as a loss.

To the bitter finish, the corporate maintained that it had been paying everybody.

When Sadrgilany stated he wasn’t going to point out as much as considered one of his jobs with Yours Truly Media, citing the corporate’s failure to pay him on time for prior work, the corporate’s COO, Joe Ankenbauer, informed Sadrgilany to “do yourself a favor and show up.”

“If you choose to not show up, you will be liable for any damages for doing so. We will take you to court for this, so you will be liable for that as well,” Ankenbauer wrote.

“While there is ‘evidence’ that some payments have been made late, there has been no one that hasn’t been paid. Especially the timeframe this photographer you talked to has said. How would we be in business if we just didn’t pay anyone. Like I said, there have been delays. But no one has never been paid.”

“I sensed the COO, Joe, had done this before, and this domineering behavior is corroborated in other contractors’ experiences,” Sadrgilany tells PetaPixel.

Yours Truly Media Is Gone however its Debts Aren’t

Per Boston 25 News, Yours Truly Media filed for chapter in Texas on February 26, 2026, alleging that it owes $2.3 million to a whole bunch of various collectors. The listing of collectors contains photographers, videographers, and almost 500 marriage ceremony {couples}. It doesn’t sound like Yours Truly Media had been paying individuals all alongside.