Monkeymole Photography

I am writing this review to help other brides make an informed decision about their wedding photographer. We booked Ashley 2.5 years before our wedding after seeing he was a recommended supplier of Cripps and co where we were getting married. After a thorough research of his website, instagram and google reviews I was confident my £2k was being well spent. After we booked Ashley we had no contact from him in the 2.5years until the week before the wedding when we were surprised by an email asking for us to pay cash in hand. I was shocked as this doesn’t seem to be the norm, but replied to say that would be ok as long as he provided a receipt. No sign of the pre wedding zoom call promised when booking, but due to the chaos of organising the wedding I had other things on my mind and didn’t think too much of it. I had followed his instagram and watched his stories weekly felt I know exactly what I was getting. The day of the wedding came and he presented himself as a calm knowledgable character, floating around the hotel and even fixing my shoes when we couldn’t fasten them up. Ashley states his style is candid photos, and to quote the website ‘says away from shotlists’. Nonetheless the shot list was provided and on the day he made sure to pull us away from family to get the shots we requested. Unfortunately that’s where the normality ends. When he left our wedding he promised us sneak peeks within the next few days. These never arrived. After 2 weeks with nothing to share with my family and friends, I emailed and was ignored. 3 emails and an instagram message were sent requesting sneak peaks over the next few weeks all of which were ignored. His instagram stores were and still are filled by stories of his 9 weddings back to back, 1 day off then back into his manic run of weddings etc which was alarming to say the least. 6 weeks after the wedding the gallery arrives in my inbox at midnight. No apology for ignoring all of my emails or lack of sneak peeks. To say I was shocked by the gallery is an understatement, I was devastated by what we were provided. I can’t take away from the fact that we have some beautiful photos, specifically from the shot list I provided. At least 20 of my 400 images are beautiful and I will frame them. However the rest of the gallery is beyond abysmal. I have images of people mid yawn, or eyes closed blinking. Im not daft enough to think these things don’t happen, but surely if you are only sending 400 images, just pick the one from 10 seconds later when the eyes are open?? I have x4 pictures of my gift bags. A photo of the hairdresser reflected in the mirror and the back of my head. Of all the photos of her putting on my veil, this is the one he chooses to include?? There is no photograph of my parents or grandparents outside of the formal shots. There is only 1 full length picture of me in my dress. There is no picture of me at my wedding with my bridesmaids. There is no picture of me with my parents. There are no photos of our beautiful venue. There are no ‘candid’ shots of me and Andrew chatting to our guests. None of my sister, my step children or my husbands family. Ashley states his style is ‘fundamentally based on an editorial look, but with a bit of a twist. Desaturated greens, deep blacks, and rich skin tones are the order of the day’. Well my gallery couldn’t be more different. The edit is barely present at all, and looks absolutely nothing like his ‘style’. It is very apparent that the gallery has been mass edited, possibly by AI or another person, but certainly not by Ashley. After calming down and reflecting for a few days i emailed Ashley to let him know how upset I was, and with a polite request for any other photos he has of the day, and a reedit of the gallery. After 2 weeks he replied that there wasn’t much he could do, his style has changed since I booked him and so that’s no longer the look you get. I will post his response below. I emailed again to at least send me any RAW images of my grandma and me or my parents, and sent messages on instagram and these have all since been ignored for the last 6 weeks. Needless to say the receipt of my cash payment has also never arrived. Looking now at some of the reviews on Google it has become quite clear that I am far from the only one, and speaking to my other suppliers and local venues word has now begun to get round about what Ashley is like. Please do not be fooled, for all the 5* Ashley is amazing reviews, there are now some pretty sad and honest reviews to go alongside them. I am just so incredibly disappointed in my experience. My day went so quickly and in such a blur I have very little memories and I was so excited to be able to re-live it, and there are whole swathes of the day not captured that I will never see. I have paid a huge some of money for a service which was in my opinion not provided, but the way Ashley has handled my disappointment tells me everything I need to know about his character and how he runs his business, out of pure greed. Book as many weddings as possible, take cash in hand (2k tax free per day we can all do the maths) do the bare minimum work you can get away with and then ghost the couple afterwards and hope it goes away. My advice to future brides, what you see on his socials is not what you are going to get and he has admitted this in his email below. If you can cancel, do it now even it means loosing your deposit. If you are going ahead, do not pay cash in hand and give him his extra 20%. Ensure you provide a shot list down to every specific detail and make someone responsible on the day for him ticking off each shot. Have a videographer or second photographer or at the very least family with your iPhone taking as many as they can just incase your images don’t materialise. My advice to Ashley when you read this; the wedding industry is small as you well know, and everyone knows everyone. If you have a shred of compassion, sort out the brides you have disappointed already rather than holding their images hostage. Edit peoples galleries in the style your clients have actually paid for. Stop complaining on instagram how overworked you are and maybe pay some of your £££££ towards hiring an administrator to answer your ‘many emails and enquires’ so you have more time to do your job.

January 2023 we had first booked Ashley and paid the deposit, communication was great (of course he is being paid money and getting another booking) however fast forward a year communication was far and few in-between. In our booking we had added on a pre wedding shoot and after MULTIPLE attempts to arrange this, we were still ignored via email and phone call. We emailed again to say that it’s getting too late in the year now and to see if we could have the balance taken off our final invoice (again no response) Fast forward to the start of October (a month before our wedding) I email Ashley to ask if we can have a catch up, and if I can have the form to gather details of the photos that we would like for our wedding day, that was stated on his website that we would receive ….again no response. A few days later we receive an email to pay our final balance. Not acknowledging ANY emails we had sent previously. Over a week of chasing went by, multiple emails and phone calls with ZERO response, even stating in the emails that we were getting quite stressed and anxious. Again nothing….THANK GOD we took the decision to book another photographer who was completely horrified at how we had been treated throughout and photographed our day amazingly! To this day we STILL have had no email back acknowledging us, no phone calls, no apology …let alone getting our deposit back. Ashley clearly takes on far too many bookings and is more concerned about how aesthetic is Instagram account is rather than spending the time replying to his BOOKED couples. (Throughout the no communication there was even Instagram stories promoting free dates for 2025/26) All you have after your special day is the photos and your memories, book someone who cares!

Absolutely loved having Ashley with us on the day. Always on hand, kept everyone laughing, and has given us the most amazing pictures to remember our day back. An all round great guy, and I’m so glad we booked him.

Thank you Ashley for capturing our special day, it was absolutely perfect. We didn’t want the day filling with posed pictures, but wanted all of the day capturing. Most of the time we didn’t even know Ashley was there, and captured pictures we didn’t even know were being taken! I love all of the pictures and how they tell the story of our day, and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Ashley to others.

Great photographer, love the pictures, and an all round top chap. Thanks for all the work you put in for our wedding, and thank you for the gorgeous pictures.

Ashley was part of our wider photographer & videography team, and I just want to share my thanks for your efforts and work on the day. He was an absolute gent to have with us during the day, keeping us all calm (and well fed!!), and capturing some really special moments for us. We found out after the wedding there were a few elements of the day that didn’t quite go as planned - Ashley is spoken about with superhero status amongst our guests, thanks to rolling up the sleeves to ensure the day went on without a hitch. Thank you for the wonderful photos, and being such an integral part of our day being perfect.

Picking a photographer was something me and the husband to be were really dreading - we really don’t like having our picture taken and spending the day posing is our idea of a nightmare. As soon as we had a chat with Ash, we knew we had found our photographer straight away. He was brilliant in helping with the preparations, and mega organised with getting all of the details from us. On the day he was absolutely faultless, got on well with the guests, kept us both nice and relaxed, and made sure the photography parts of the day were really fun. We were blown away when we first got our pictures - they were so much better than we could have ever imagined, and captured some of the most gorgeous pictures of us without us even knowing. A brilliant photographer that we’d hire again in a heartbeat.

Ashley was fantastic from the first time we spoke to him, we are not the best with photos and we didn’t want a photo shoot. Ashley put us at ease from the off and wow he didn’t disappoint. When we received our photos we were blown away! The moments he captured were incredible, and so natural. Thank you for making our day so special and creating our beautiful photos that we can cherish forever.

Well what can I say? Not only was Ashley a pleasure to have around on our wedding day but the photos he took are incredible and captured our day perfectly. I could not be happier with the end result and we would happily recommend Monkeymole to anyone. Thank you Ashley for making our day so special and giving us amazing photos to remember our day with for years to come.

Hi Ashley, I just wanted to say thank you so much for capturing our day in such a wonderful way. All of the photos do a brilliant day of telling the story of our day, we absolutely love them, and can’t stop looking at them! We would recommend you in a flash to other couples - very happy with the decision we made to book you!