Wedding Wednesday: Engagement Sessions

Nowadays, people need a professional photographer for everything! Of course you need a photographer for the wedding, but also for the actual proposal itself, an “engagement session”, and the rehearsal dinner; and after marriage you might hire one for anniversary sessions, holiday cards, pregnancy announcements, baby showers, gender reveals (separate from baby showers, of course), or even for the actual birth of your child! Man, did I pick the wrong profession or what?! I seriously just saw on Facebook yesterday that this girl had a professional photographer take photos of the birth of her child, and everyone holding the baby after the birth. I kind of get it, and who knows, I might be THAT kind of mom and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just so so different from the “old days” when you would be lucky to have one picture of your proposal, which may or may not have been recreated specifically for that photo; or when the only proof that you weren’t adopted is a shaky video recorded on a giant camcorder held by your father, who was the only other person in the room that didn’t work at the hospital. I can’t say I don’t enjoy looking through all of these pictures, I love them all actually, especially when they tell a good story, but sometimes it seems a little excessive. Also, It’s becoming apparent that I need to befriend some professional photographers or get in the industry, because these sessions are not cheap!

With all that said, this Wedding Wednesday I am sharing some of our engagement session pictures from last year and a few tips for your session. To be honest, I don’t love most of them, especially my excessive use of the “skinny arm” that I wish I would have been directed to stop doing immediately, so I am definitely looking forward to doing another shoot with my husband in the future. Here are some of my favorites from our session:

This was our very first shot of the session and you can tell we were a little awkward and didn’t really know what we were doing. And oh hey, there’s that skinny arm pose…first of many. Sorry.

I really wanted to recreate the scene from The Notebook where Noah and Allie are laying in the crosswalk playing chicken with the stoplight. Unfortunately, we could not find anywhere nearby that had a stoplight and access to a high enough position for our photographer to capture the shot, so we improvised.

People thought we were a little nuts laying in the street, especially a street that’s open to traffic, but it was kind of fun. I feel like he seems a little more uncomfortable about the idea than I was. Lol.

A new outfit does not mean a new pose, but I still like this one 🙂

One of my favorites

I like the ones of him looking at me more than the ones of me looking at him, I’m just not a fan of my profile.

Another one of my favorites 🙂

Here’s a few tips I picked up from doing our engagement session that’ll hopefully help you when planning your own:

1. Pick a location that has several different backgrounds available, and then do some research before you go. We just chose Ybor City for our location because it’s old and historic and very “Tampa” and we kind of winged it, but there were a lot of backgrounds I didn’t care for that I think we ended up using because our photographer had a different “eye” for things than we did.

2. If you’ve seen specific pictures that you want to recreate, write them down or at least have Pinterest on your phone so you’ll remember what you like when the time comes, or send them to your photographer so they know what you want. That way, you won’t be stuck creating the same poses over and over again in a different location.

3. Bring at least two outfits for each of you! I really liked that we changed halfway through because I feel like each outfit brought a different vibe to the shoot. If you plan on changing, have an idea before hand of where you will be changing, there might not be a restroom available where you are. Also, you may want to consider recruiting a friend to tag along who wouldn’t mind carrying your extra stuff around and hold your phones so you don’t have to keep track of all that.

4. Get creative! If you think a shot might look good, try it! That’s what we did with the ones of me on his back, and I ended up loving them. It only takes a minute for your photographer to snap a few pictures, and if you don’t like how it turned out in the end, no worries, you’ll have plenty of other pictures to choose from!

5. Have fun, be silly, be comfortable and be yourself! It will definitely come across in your photos if you’re truly enjoying yourselves and not taking it too seriously.

Is your engagement session coming up soon? If so, good luck! I’d love to hear all about your ideas and plans 🙂

Happy Hump Day!

xoxo,

Kirsten