Wedding photographer admits to stealing thousands of dollars from brides

Click here for updates on this story

    COLLIN COUNTY, Texas (KTVT) — A wedding photographer pleaded guilty to felony theft after ripping off at least a dozen clients.

It began with an email to the CBS News Texas I-Team back in 2022. Maggie Jones had hired Olivia Seymour Photography for engagement and wedding photos, paid the fee, but only received excuses from the photographer.

“I get a message from her, ‘I’ve been at the ER all day, I have to cancel,” said Jones.

She says she received similar reasons for delays every time she tried to book the engagement session.

“It went on for months and months and months,” she said.

Then, in September 2022, she received a mass email from Seymour to 77 clients. In the message, Seymour apologized for her “communication not being the best,” explaining that she had “fallen a little bit behind” because of personal issues.

That’s when the women began communicating with each other and realized they were receiving the same last-minute explanations. At least three of them received the same photo of a thermometer, each on different days. Each time Seymour said her child was sick and they were on the way to the emergency room.

In one case, two clients had weddings on the same day, and Seymour gave the brides different reasons for not being there.

Seymour’s contract allows her to send another photographer in her place. Sarah Barrington met the substitute hours before her ceremony.

“She said that it was her second or third wedding that she’d done by herself, so she was going to try her best,” said Barrington.

While Barrington learned of Seymour’s “family emergency” that morning, the replacement photographer told her she’d been hired a week prior to the wedding.

“It’s very disappointing and such a big letdown, because that was our special day,” said Barrington.

It’s not just the brides. At least four photographers say they were ripped off, too.

“She messaged me on Facebook about 9 a.m., frantically telling me she had a sick kid,” Rachael Stonecipher recalled.

Stonecipher agreed to shoot the wedding, which started at 2 p.m. that day but says she never received payment.

All of that is why Jones was not surprised when Seymour called just hours before her wedding.

“She was like, ‘I’m so sorry, I was just in a car accident and I got rear-ended and I’m in the hospital,'” said Jones.

Jones had already booked another photographer.

The night our original report aired, another victim was watching: a Collin County deputy who said she too had hired Seymour, only to be stood up. The deputy filed her own report, and the very next day the Collin County Sheriff’s Office got involved.

The investigator started by contacting the women featured in our reporting. Both Jones and Barrington were contacted and asked to share their stories.

According to the affidavit, the investigator found unhappy customers dating back nearly two years. In court documents, he wrote, “the events are not a mismanagement of business, but an intentional act to deceive and deprive.”

The sheriff’s office filed a felony theft charge against Seymour, alleging she owed 12 women more than $11,000 total.

After almost two years of trying to speak with Seymour, we caught up with her outside the courthouse after one of her court hearings. She denied being Olivia Seymour and said she had no idea what we were talking about.

The case dragged on for months with several delays, but eventually Seymour pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced her to two years probation and ordered her to repay Jones and several others.

“Am I grateful that I’m getting my money?” said Jones. “Absolutely. But there are so many more brides that didn’t get on in this indictment, and so she got so much more money that she didn’t have to pay back.”

It’s the end of a long fight for these women, even as new brides are on the horizon for Olivia Seymour Photography, which appears to still be booking clients online.

Seymour is also the target of five civil lawsuits from women who say they are owed money.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.