BEST WEDDING EVER! SERIES: WHY YOU WANT THAT ENGAGEMENT SESSION
& OTHER ENGAGEMENT SESSION TIPS
Engagement sessions. What is their purpose? There is the obvious – to announce your engagement! Whaat! Crazy happy time. Bets are though, that about 10 minutes after it happened you posted that shizz on facebook and your bffl who witnessed it snapped a photo of the act, the ring, and it’s up there too. I mean hello! It’s a big deal! But it’s not really like our parents or grandparents generation where announcements were sent in the mail, or it was going in the paper. We live in an instant-gratification society because of technology. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it poses an interesting question. Why pay for that expensive photo session when everyone already knows?
Engagement photos are important for a few reasons, and no it’s not just for us photographers to make more money off of you. Quite honestly, many photographers happily eat the cost of those sessions to make sure that they happen at all, myself included.
Engagement, is relatively quite a short time frame. For some it’s just a few months. I know when I was engaged it was really exciting to be planning this day I had imagined since I was a teenager, and to call this person I’m marrying their new title of fiancé – get outta here boyfriend, you are old news. Fiancé time! Upgrade! People are always asking to hear the details of your wedding, and how the proposal happened and it seems as if everyone is just swooning over your love story.
One of the most important reasons to have your engagement session, is to get to know your wedding photographer. Your photographer is going to be kind of like your bestie, bodyguard, assistant, and paparazzi on your wedding day. They will be with you and your spouse the whole day. You want to make sure you actually like that person. How much would it suck to meet them the day of the wedding and find out they have the most dreadful personality and you are stuck together for 8+ hours!! Is that person helpful in making you laugh and smile? Probably not. But an engagement session allows you to meet first, and decide either our personalities don’t click or yeah I love them!
Also, it allows you to see a sample of their work, before the wedding day. A photographer’s portfolio should be a good representation of their style, but you aren’t in those photos. You may love their work and after the session decide while they are nice (or not so nice in your opinion) they aren’t for you. A photographer, while it may make them a little sad, DEFINITELY would rather this scenario than the alternative: you being unhappy with wedding photos. Engagement sessions can be redone with a new photographer, weddings – not so much.
So what if you met with your photographer, they are the bee’s knees you know you will love everything, and they are fantastically funny/cool/amazeballs. Your friend gave you a free engagement session, so you don’t really need another one. Right? Wrong. Even if you have already met with your photographer (which I also recommend), you should still get your engagement photos with them. It allows you to get comfortable in front of their camera. You will learn how they operate, how they direct or pose you, and they get to know about you guys a little bit more. You start to develop a relationship with the photographer, so come wedding day you will feel more at ease when their lens is pointed at you all day. You will know their process, and it won’t feel like a stranger peeping in on you.
Lastly, they can be really fun! You get to spend some time with your honey, feeling glamorous, probably either somewhere really beautiful or with a lot of meaning to you guys as a couple (or both). I love shooting engagement sessions because couples are so happy and in love, and I want to give them a keepsake of that short time for them to remember how excited they were about the adventure they were about to begin together.
