Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Vida Visual Media is a wedding and quinceañera photography and video studio based in Riverside, California, owned and operated by Francisco Sarmiento. We are a small independent studio, not a data company — the information described below exists so we can answer your inquiry, photograph your event, deliver your images, and understand which of our ads are worth what we spend on them.

This policy covers vida-visual.com and the pages we host for clients (galleries, contracts, invoices and questionnaires). You can reach us at info@vida-visual.com.

2. Information We Collect

Information you give us

• Your name, email address and phone number
• Event details — date, venue, guest count, type of event, budget range
• Messages and inquiries you send through our forms, email, Instagram or Facebook
• Answers to planning questionnaires, timelines, shot lists and vendor contacts
• Your signature and the date you signed, when you sign a contract on our site
• Billing details. Card numbers are entered directly into Stripe and never touch our servers; we see only the last four digits, the card brand and whether a payment succeeded

Information collected automatically when you visit

• IP address, approximate location (country and region), browser and device type
• Pages you viewed, how you got here, how long you stayed and where you clicked
• A recording of your session — mouse movement, clicks and scrolling — captured by Microsoft Clarity, with text you type into forms masked before it leaves your browser
• The campaign, ad or link that first brought you to the site, and the one that brought you back, stored in your own browser so an inquiry can be credited to the right source

Section 4 lists exactly which tools do this and how to turn them off.

Information from third parties

• Contact details you submit through a Meta lead form on Instagram or Facebook, which Meta passes to us
• Payment and payout records from Stripe
• Reviews you leave publicly on Google or Facebook

3. How We Use Your Information

• Respond to your inquiry and send you pricing, availability and proposals
• Prepare and deliver contracts, invoices, receipts and payment reminders
• Plan and photograph your event, and deliver your gallery
• Send you emails about your booking, and occasional studio news you can unsubscribe from
• Understand which pages, ads and campaigns actually produce bookings
• Keep the site secure, prevent spam submissions, and keep required business records

We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we have never received money for it. We do share limited information with the advertising platforms we buy from so they can tell us which ads worked — see Section 4, which explains precisely what that means and how to stop it.

4. Cookies, Analytics and Session Recording

Our site uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are required for the site to function; the rest measure how the site and our advertising perform. Here is the full list of what runs and who operates it:

Your controls. Analytics and advertising can be switched off at any time from Your Privacy Choices, in this site's footer. Visitors in the EU, EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland are asked before any of it runs; visitors elsewhere can opt out at any time using that same link. You can also block cookies in your browser settings, and opt out of Meta's advertising through your Facebook ad preferences.

5. Do Not Track and Cross-Site Tracking

Browsers can send a “Do Not Track” signal, but the industry never agreed on what it should mean, so we do not respond to it. We do honour the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal where your browser sends one, and our privacy choices link works for everyone regardless.

To answer the question California requires us to answer directly: yes, third parties may collect information about your activity across different websites over time when you use our site. Google, Meta and Microsoft each do this through the tools named in Section 4. We do not control what they collect once it reaches them, only whether we let them run here — which is what the privacy choices link decides.

6. Messaging via Instagram and Facebook

When you message us through Instagram or Facebook Messenger, your messages arrive through Meta's platform and are processed so we can reply. Message content is used only to respond to your inquiry and to keep the thread coherent, and contact details you give us there may be saved to our CRM so we can follow up. We do not use the content of your messages for advertising.

7. Who We Share Information With

We share only what a given company needs to do its job for us. Each is bound by its own agreement with us and may not use your information for its own purposes:

• Stripe — payment processing
• HubSpot — our CRM, where inquiries and correspondence are stored
• Resend — sending our emails
• Vercel — hosting the site, and the database behind galleries, contracts and invoices
• Google, Meta, Microsoft — analytics and advertising measurement, as described in Section 4
• Second photographers, videographers and editors we work with, limited to what a specific event requires

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to establish or defend a legal claim. If the studio is ever sold or transferred, client records would move with it, and we would tell you before that happened.

8. Your Photographs

Photographs and video we create are covered by the services agreement you sign, not by this policy — but two points belong here because they are about you.

First, our agreement grants us the right to use images from your session or event in our portfolio, on this website, and on social media. Second, if you would rather we did not, tell us — in writing, at any time, including after delivery — and we will stop using them going forward and remove them from our site and social accounts where we still control the post. Ask before the event where possible; it is far easier than untangling it later.

Client galleries are protected by a password or an emailed access link. Please do not share that link with anyone you would not want viewing the gallery.

9. Security and How Long We Keep Things

The site is served over HTTPS, admin access requires a password and a session token, and client galleries require an access credential. Payment card data is handled entirely by Stripe and never stored on our systems. No system is perfectly secure, and we will not claim otherwise — but we do not keep what we do not need.

• Inquiries that never became bookings — kept up to 3 years, then deleted
• Client records, contracts and invoices — kept at least 7 years, as tax and contract law require
• Delivered galleries — kept online for the period stated in your agreement; archive copies may be retained longer
• Analytics data — retained under each provider's own schedule, generally 14 months or less

10. Your Rights

You may ask us, at any time and free of charge, to:

• Tell you what personal information we hold about you and where it came from
• Correct anything that is wrong
• Delete your information, subject to records we are legally required to keep
• Send you a copy of your information in a portable format
• Stop marketing emails — every one of them has an unsubscribe link
• Opt out of the analytics and advertising described in Section 4

Email info@vida-visual.com and we will respond within 45 days. We will never treat you differently — in price, service or attention — for exercising any of these rights.

California

Vida Visual Media is a small studio and does not meet the revenue or volume thresholds that make a company a covered “business” under the CCPA/CPRA. We honour the rights above for California residents regardless, because they are the right rights. An authorised agent may make a request on your behalf with written proof of authorisation.

European Union, EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland

We are not established in Europe and do not target European customers, but if you contact us from there: our legal bases are your consent (for analytics and advertising cookies, collected through the banner), performance of a contract (for booking and delivering your event), and legitimate interests (responding to inquiries, securing the site, keeping business records). You additionally have the right to object to processing, to restrict it, to withdraw consent at any time, and to complain to your national supervisory authority. Your information is processed in the United States by the providers listed in Section 7.

11. Children

This site is not directed to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information online. We do photograph minors — quinceañeras and family sessions in particular — and in those cases the booking, the agreement and any consent to use images come from a parent or legal guardian, never from the minor. If you believe a child has submitted information through this site, write to us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

When this policy changes we update the date at the top of the page and, for changes that materially affect how we use your information, we email active clients and reset the cookie banner so you can review your choices. The version in force is always the one published here.

13. Contact

For any privacy-related question or request:

Francisco Sarmiento
Vida Visual Media
6385 Baker St, Riverside, CA 92509
info@vida-visual.com
(951) 478-2639

See also our Terms of Service.