Keys to a great engagement session

Hey, you’ve booked a photographer! Maybe it was me. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, your first major photography task is to set up an engagement session. While arguably less essential than your wedding photos, engagement sessions should not be overlooked.

1. You’ll likely use these photos for Save-The-Dates, your website, and other promotional materials. Maybe even some profile picture material? (Side note: are profile pictures still relevant? Snapchat uses a Memoji and I don’t do Tik Tok.)
2. As a photographer, this is an amazing opportunity to get to know you, hear your story, and get a sense of how you operate around a camera and what I can do to facilitate the best possible images.
3. Your wedding photos will be stunning, but the focus will be primarily on documenting the day. Your engagement session is all about you and capturing your love for each other in a fun, relaxed setting.

Try to schedule your session around golden hour. This is that stretch just before sunset when everything is cast in soft, warm light. This creates stunning backdrops and prevents harsh shadows on your faces.

Trust your photographer’s prompting. If you do a session with me, we’ll be mixing in games and prompts that may feel like they have nothing to do with love or romantic pictures. (i.e. Clasp hands and twirl around like you’re playing ring-around-the-rosie or hold each other tightly and walk like you’re coming home from the bars at 2AM). These prompts are designed to elicit natural joy and posing in your photographs — plus, they are far more fun than “Stand with your hands on your hips and, uh, face me.”

Let your photos reflect you. Many couples enjoy the outdoors, so it’s natural that we take photographs on trails or in State Parks. But that doesn’t have to be the only place engagement photos should be taken. We can snap photos of you cooking or camping, at a coffee shop or in a boat.

Bring props. I recommend a blanket. Not only does it enable some fun, interactive poses, but it can also be used on the ground as a layer between you and the weeds, dew, or dirt.

Wear simple, uncluttered clothes. Avoid large graphics or brand names. We want the focus of the pictures to be you, not ABERCROMBIE & FITCH CLOTHING EST. 1994.

Choose complementary outfits. Avoid wearing the exact same shade as your partner, but be sure your clothes look alright next to each other. If one person is wearing a pattern (say, flannel), have the other person wear a solid.

Or ignore all of that and just wear clothes you feel good in. Your photos will stand out for the emotions they reflect, not the clothes you wear. (*there are probably some exceptions to this.)

Let go. Have fun. Love each other. Realistically, devoting hours of your life to reading articles like this one is probably not the best way to set yourself up for success. People respond to imagery that showcases two people who really seem to like the heck out of each other. So maybe the best advice is this: ignore the noise. Just show up and spend a magical evening with the person you’re going to marry. Let your photographer take care of the rest.