I often have brides asking me if they should do an engagement shoot. My answer is always the same…yes! Here’s why;
1. Its the best practice you can get for your wedding day. Normally your wedding day photo session is tight timing wise so you don’t want to waste the first 30 min awkwardly trying to get into the flow of it.
I had the incredible Danelle Bohane take our engagement photos and she is beyond talented. (Seriously check her out) I get to call her one of my best friends and her talent never ceases to amaze me. She was recently voted one of the Top 100 photographers in the world…The WORLD! And even with such an amazing photographer directing us my husband and I still took a bit to warm in and work past our awkward weird smiles. Some photographers offer packages for both your engagement shoot and wedding day photography and I recommend getting both. You will be more relaxed with your photographer and with each other.
I love photos that capture a moment. Danelle had us talk and be normal and here she caught us talking and getting excited about how close our wedding was.2. I love engagement shoots because its just nice to have some decent photos of you and your partner. My husband and I had lots of photos but not many when we both looks great. Lets face it our grandparents had lovely portraits of themselves and its a great way to remember them. I don’t want my grandkids only to have good photos of us at our wedding and some selfies at a Cold Play concert. We had lots of fun on our shoot and some of the photos are my all time favorite photos of us both.
Its this kind of photo that we never had, just us both looking into the camera more portrait style. Love this one. (The photo you send to your grandma)3. You will be surprised how much you will use them. We used our photos on our wedding invite, when emailing family and friends overseas to update them on our lives and wedding plans, framed as gifts for our parents and we even used them for thank you cards for our engagement party.
Bring a change of outfits and get some PDA in there folks. Your in love after all. Plus you will want to get used to being close and intimate before your wedding day photos.4. Finally its a great time to have your hair and makeup trial. Being a makeup artist if one of my brides says she is having her engagement shoot I always try my best to see if we can do the makeup trial that morning so that she can see how it will last and look in photos. You will never understand until you take photos how much of your look is lost with photography. I often will have a bride say she wants really natural makeup for her wedding (I am all about that so great) but there still has to be enough to hold for the day and look good in photos. Its just about balance. Almost all of the brides that get their makeup done for their engagement shoot come back and ask for a bit more. It just a good chance to have a really good trial run of your look before the wedding day.
I hope this has helped. If you end up having an engagement shoot and its comes our pretty special send it my way and I might just share it.
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