Congratulations on your engagement! If you’ve gotten far enough to read this, you’ve likely already started planning your wedding. You may have even already had engagement photo session captured. Engagement photos allow you to announce your engagement, are a frequently used for Save the Date cards, and help tell the story of a major milestone in your relationship. Because I believe in the benefit and importance of engagement sessions so much, my wedding clients receive their engagement session at a highly discounted rate. In this blog post, we’ll discuss why you should include it in your package.

Discovering Your Photographic Dynamic

Every couple is unique, and your engagement photo session is the perfect time to explore your posing dynamic as a couple. Whether you prefer romantic and intimate shots or fun and playful images, your engagement session allows you to express your personalities and showcase your love in a way that feels authentic to you. It helps me see what type and level of direction you like. I see what poses you naturally fall into, what is most flattering. It shows what type of direction you respond best to. When planning your wedding photos, using your engagement gallery, we can reflect and determine which poses, directions, and images you liked best! Engagement sessions offer flexibility to try different things, without the concern for time. You can learn and understand your vision and preferences.

Building Trust and Connection

It takes a lot of trust to let someone take your photo, and I don’t take that for granted. Your engagement session builds that trust and comfort ahead of your wedding day. Engagement sessions make you comfortable in front of my camera before your wedding! It allows you to experience a sneak peek of what your couple’s portraits will feel like on your wedding. Also, it allows both me (photographer) and you (the couple/models) to understand how we work together. Then, when I walk into your bridal suite on your wedding day, you will feel a sense of immediate trust and comfort. We can get right into making magic, because you will have that established trust of me in front of the camera. For this reason, even if you’ve already had engagement pictures taken, I still highly recommend booking one with your eventual wedding photographer!

Engagement is a Season of Preparation

One of the more obvious reasons that engagement photo sessions are captured are for announcing your engagement or Save the Date cards. Some couples like to spread the news about their engagement quickly, and using images is one of the best ways to do that–especially if you’re announcing on Social Media. (You will receive sneak peeks within 24 hours and your full gallery within 2 weeks, which allows you to use the images right away!)

An engagement session also allows you to document this very important season in your relationship. It tells the story of this season of preparation. Your engagement is generally shorter than the time you spent dating, and much shorter than your marriage. But, this season is a major milestone. The excitement and celebration of saying “yes” to committing your futures together is huge. It, too, should be documented.

Make Engagement Photos an Adventure

Your engagement photo session doesn’t need to be posed or formal. I love when couples want to take me along on one of their favorite pastimes. Maybe it’s visiting your first date spot, visiting the park that you took your dogs to walk, or going out for drinks at that Chicago bar that you’ve wanted to visit for a long time. Maybe it’s getting photos outside your first shared home. For my fellow animal lovers, you can find a way to include your pets! Moral is: anything that will tell the story of your relationship, I’m down for. I love when couples want to plan an engagement session that truly includes aspects of their relationship and will allow those experiences to be documented on camera to last. This further allows you to relax in front of the camera, enjoying each other and the experience of documenting your love story.

Conclusion

It may be easy to overlook the importance of an engagement session. However, investing the time and effort into this pre-wedding photo shoot can make a world of difference in the outcome of your wedding day photography. From building trust and connection with your photographer to getting comfortable in front of the camera and personalizing your wedding story, an engagement session offers countless benefits that will enhance your overall experience as a couple. So, embrace the opportunity to capture this special chapter in your love story and let your engagement session be the starting point for a lifetime of beautiful memories captured through photography.

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If you’re interested in booking an engagement photo session or you are looking for a wedding photographer, please get in touch through my contact form!