Ivelin Iliev

We had our wedding in July of 2022 in my grandmother’s villa in Borovetz, Bulgaria. We flew friends and family in from all over the world. Our wedding was beautiful. Sometime in October of 2022, while waiting in anticipation for our photoset to be finished, we decided to see what photos we had on our phones. We noticed that in some of the getting ready, photos our photographer had let himself in the dressing room rather than waiting outside as he should’ve been. We reached out and asked him, if had taken any photos that contained nudity, that he not post or share them for obvious reasons, those are intimate and private photos. He immediately responded, assuring us that if any such photos exist, they would remain for us and for us only and that he could not afford to share such photos without our consent. Fast forward to December of 2022, we finally received our photo set, a few months late, but that’s besides the point. Sure enough there were several photos that contained nudity, exposed breasts and buttocks. We were both a bit upset. We immediately reached out to our photographer, thanking him for the photos, and kindly asked him to remove and delete the photos containing nudity, we did not want those photos shared with anyone else. The following day, still upset, I reached out to photographer and asked him not to post any photos from our wedding on his various platforms. We did not hear back from until the day before Christmas. He didn’t respond to me, instead he wrote a scathing email to my wife “I already told you, these Artistic photos remain for the couple” and “I’m unhappy with your husbands request not post photos from your wedding…” Memories from our wedding forever stained, Christmas 2022, shot. After the holidays passed and the dust settled, we wrote him a kind email telling him how we felt and asking him to only share photos from the reception and ceremony. We never got a response. Fast forward to November 2023, we come to find that there are nude photos of my wife for anyone to view and download hi-res on one of the websites that he uses to promote his work. We immediately reached out to the website imploring them to take down the photos. They responded saying that the photographer had received consent from the couple, which was a lie. We also reached out to the photographer; however he did not respond. After three emails over the course of several days, practically begging him take down the photos, we had our attorney draft a letter to which he finally responded with some halfhearted excuse. This is Ivelin Iliev, this is the depth of his character, a textbook narcissist, and a documented liar. Unfortunately, our wedding will always have this stain. Also worth mentioning, I’m not the type of person to say what’s too much or too little in terms of wedding photography, some couples go as far as Boudoir shoots, people have varying levels of comfort and sharing parts of their body publicly, but what we can say is that we did not want this for our special day. In retrospect, he was the only vendor that didn’t take a moment to meet or chat with us, to get a feel for us, and to discuss what we were and were not comfortable with, a small man with a big ego. He was also the only vendor that was not vetted, from personal experience. Please take this as a lesson, ask questions, meet with your vendors, set the tone and expectation. The couple is the paying client, not a payed model, you will (hopefully) not a get a chance for a re-do. However beautiful some of the photos may be, they are not worth the stain and heartache the have caused us. Ivelin, we invited you on our most special day, opened our doors to our home, and you betrayed us. We did not deserve the unprofessionalism and disrespect that you showed us, for this we are certain, karma will comeback to bite you, when you are least expecting it and most vulnerable.