What should we wear for our engagement session?

The first two basics are simple: wear clothes you feel good in and wear clothes that represent you. Most of us can do this intuitively: if you aren’t a biker, odds are you aren’t going to show up in leather pants and a Harley Davidson tee.

It’s the other things that make the outfit decisions tricky: do colors matter? should we match or not match? how many outfits should we bring? are hats weird? I ate Cheetos in one of my shirts, is it okay if it has cheese dust all over the sleeves?

My wife will assure you that I am no fashion wizard myself, but I have done this enough times to be able to offer a few pointers. So let’s dig in.

Quick preface: You can wear whatever the heck you want. You know what makes a great engagement photo? Genuine emotion. Love, joy passion, romance, laughter. Photos of a couple truly in love in sweatpants and stained t-shirts are going to look better than an immaculately dressed couple coldly looking into the distance. Or looking into the distance and fretting about whether their outfit was the right choice.

Every time.

Cool. Now what that out of the way, here’s my advice. Or just scroll to the bottom of all of this for a bullet-pointed summary.

This one is pretty simple: an ideal photograph is limited to three colors. In the photo above we have the green landscape, the blue jeans, and some warm red/oranges in the shirt and on the bridge. It’s clean, minimal, and ensures that the eye is drawn to the subject: you, the couple.

What’s the take-away here? Color theory matters. When looking at those photographs that “just work”, color is usually one of the reasons. Try not to go color-crazy. Be mindful of where you’ll be and what your partner will be wearing. A few of the rules below play off the three color rule.

If you have 7 minutes and want to see how the three color rule works in movies, watch this.

Engagement photo basic #16: we want you to stand out. To do this, you’re going to have to look a little different than your background. If you’re taking pictures near a lake, navy blue might be a poor choice. If your backdrop is a forest, a green shirt is probably not the direction you want to go in. And of course if one of you wears camo, there’s a high likelihood that the other one will look single in many of the pictures.

Just like we want to stand out from the background, we also want a little visual differentiation from our partner. But not entirely.

• If one is wearing a darker clothes, the other should be lighter. Black and navy blue? Too similar. Navy blue and blue-jean blue? Solid pairing. But remember to consider your background. If your background may be dark, then both of you should wear light, or vise versa.
• If one of you wears a patterned shirt, the other should not. Flannel? Fantastic. Double flannels? Too much. This isn’t an indie rock concert circa 2018. If you’re considering something floral, dotted, plaid, or otherwise patterned, have the second partner wear a solid color.
• Keep it monotone. One way show a little unity (you are a couple, after all), and keep that three color guideline in play is to stay within the same color family. Dark or bold red with a light, faded red (see above). Forest green and lime green! Just kidding. No lime green. But an olive-green? Strong.

If you’re unsure, the safest play is often gray. Or white, or cream-colored. But those don’t rhyme. The point is, keeping one of you in a light, bland color not only prevents too many colors from busying the image, but it also enables the be-the-same-but-different, and is an easy way to stand out from most backgrounds. It’s a win-win-win. And if you don’t have perfectly matching outfits at home, bland matches everything.

Bonus points to the couple in this picture: One pattern, One solid. One dark, one light. One bold, one neutral. And did you notice the subtle red stripes on that neutral shirt? One of these two was a planner.

Reasons why:

• If your time and location allows, you can have an additional look to some of your photographs.
• You have multiple options to complement the colors within your scene.
• You might spill coffee on your shirt on the drive over
• You might realize that you look especially outstanding in a particular shirt that day.
• Ability to be indecisive for longer.

There’s no harm in tucking an additional shirt, sweater, jacket or something else in your vehicle. Often it’s a great way to add variety and give us additional color combinations. But an outfit change isn’t always the best choice for every session. If the light is pristine, we’re having fun, and the images are really clicking, I might suggest skipping it so we don’t have to sacrifice any of our time.

A few non-clothing items are smart to have on hand. I often recommend a blanket. It’s allows some fun posing options and serves as a practical place to sit if the ground is wet or dirty.

But we can also use sentimental objects to help tell your story or highlight shared interests. Bring sports jerseys, books, welding equipment, or whatever else could help us take meaningful photographs.

• Consider your background.
• Be sure not to match it. (Green on green, etc.)
• Be similar to your partner, but don’t match them.
  • one dark, one light
  • one bold, one faded
  • one pattern, one plain
• Safe play: have one of you wear a neutral color.
• Plan for two outfits
• Bring props

But please, I can’t stress this enough: wear what will make you feel confident and comfortable. And bring things that help us showcase your love and joy. That’s it. Simple as that. Just be the loving and joyful person that your spouse knows you to be. And if that loving, joyful person likes to wear faded Nickelback t-shirts and jnco jeans, then more power to you.