Import and Collection creation process are slow

Library Path: C:\Users\Cutler Family\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom Catalog-3-2-v13-3.lrcat

So, C drive. How much free space remains on that drive with your catalog in it? Looking for at least 20% free, some state 25% free for LrC to perform properly. LrC will likely degrade badly below that value. 

From your integrated video controller, I take it that this is a laptop? And as such, probably lacking additional internal hard drives. You can consider external hard drives for that catalog, a bit slower when you have plenty of C drive space, but.....

wife had 4 photo sessions yesterday with more than 2,500 photos in total.

Are you stating that 2,500 photos were imported during 4 sessions. And nit meaning you imported a how lot fewer into a catalog that has 2,500 photos already?

Let's say that was in fact 2,500 photos in 4 sessions, so say 625 photos 4 times. Even 625 imports will take quite a bit of time to import, could easily take an hour on a very very good computer with minimum presets, previews, and other process applied during import.

One way to accomplish the import more efficiently would be to first copy the photos outside of LrC to the desired hard drive location, probably start that and go and occupy your time with something else (a coffee break perhaps) then when done, take a bit of time to copy those to a backup. And then open LrC, change the Import method from Copy, or Copy as DNG to Add, select minimum preview creation, select the desired photos already in the desired hard drive location, avoid any post import presets, start the import, and go to dinner, a movie. When done, consider a backup of that catalog. 

Advantages of using the Add method are that it gets those images copyd to a hard drive faster, before anything bad occurs, if optionally backed up it provides a bit more protection, it gets the images imported somewhat quicker as the copy process directly via your OS file manager vs LrC and the OS is slower at that. It lets you break the process into workflow steps that let you walk away a bit easier and avoid watching a pot boil in effect. It does not speed the total process time down, but may be less aggregating.

As for creating collections, or adding to collections (other than smart) that should not be a big issue post import, not sure if smart collections are an issue during import, (they will occur, but not sure if that is a performance hit)

P.S. make sure any additional process are not running in LrC during the import. Address Lookup, Face Detection, or ant sync to the cloud come to mind.

Hey, @nwman97. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. Thanks for adding the System info; it helps. I'll need some more specific info. 

Where are the Original images stored? Do you copy the images to the internal drive or an external drive? Could you let me know if you're using a USB hub to connect your Camera, SD Card, or external drives? What type of previews are you generating with the import? 

Please share a screenshot of the import panel showing your import settings.