Preparing for Engagement Photos

Drew and I knew that we wanted to take engagement pictures right from the beginning. We both love having our picture taken and love even more having our pictures taken together. We are both a bit photogenic and like to exercise this trait of ours whenever possible.  Plus, engagement pictures would give us the opportunity to best reflect us as a couple, as well as our love for one another.  And there's a whole lot of that love between us!

See all the love between us? Even when bloody!

While figuring out what we wanted to do for our engagement photos, we learned a few things along the way. First, make sure to find a photographer that you are both comfortable with and fits your style. This is really important or else you aren’t going to be able to relax and be yourself in front of them. You also could end up with photographs that just aren’t the two of you and don’t reflect you as a couple.  Remember, these photos are a part of your wedding. Don’t you want a photographer who will listen to your thoughts and ideas and be able to produce what you want in your photos?

It's really important to be able to relax and be yourself around your photographer. 

Lucky for us, we are friends with our photographer. Sara Sanger has been a friend of mine since 6^th grade. She’s taken pictures of me and Amanda for many years. I’ve seen her work since the very beginning and have enjoyed watching it progress through the year. We highly recommend having Sara take your photos if you are in the Northern California area; or even if you want to fly her to where you are.

Drew and I figured out all of our locations for taking our photos pretty easily. It was the whole reason why we decided to go to San Francisco to have them taken. This isn’t usually the case so it’s important when looking at a photographer’s portfolio to find out why they choose those locations for each couple and how each location related to that couple. Make sure to also find out how many locations that they will allow and how open they are to your ideas for locations.

Do you think a tiki bar or two might show up among our locations? 

Next came the hard part; trying to figure out how to make our photos unique, us, really fun and memorable. To have this come together the two of you will need to work together to figure out how you want the overall look of your photos to be and the feeling that you want to come across when others see them. You don’t have to have one theme, but you should know what your theme or themes are going to be and how you are going to work those into your photos. Since both of us share a love of tiki and San Francisco, our engagement photos theme was a no brainer.

Oh, tiki might make an appearance in our engagement photos theme. 

All of you who know Drew and me also know we are huge clothes whores. We even turned one of the bedrooms in our house into a dressing room. So what we decided to wear in our photos was a pretty big deal for us. We choose 6 outfits that we coordinated together down to shoes and other accessories. Each outfit was selected to go along with our 6 different locations and the feel we were going for in each of those locations. It’s always better to have too much instead of not enough and we wanted to make sure we had plenty to work with. Having options is never a bad thing. Do be prepared to make some of those clothing changes in the car or public bathrooms.

We've got this stylish dressing thing down!

Some people will say that you shouldn’t be matchy-matchy in your engagement photos or wear patterns. We did both. For us not to do so, would be not expressing ourselves as a couple. It works with our theme and locations. Plus, our friends expect it from us. 

Adorable, right? 

Don’t forget the little details. Make sure to grab a few props that reflect who the two of you are as a couple and you will enjoy having in your photos. This will help you come up with poses, as well as give you different things to do in your photos. They can help to create the mood you are going for in your photos and be of great meaning. Don’t be afraid to take along a couple props that are goofy and will make you laugh. Unless, of course, you are a very serious couple who never laughs!

We will not be bringing any dinosaurs as props. 

Did you discover any tips along the way when  planning for your engagement photos?

*All photos are from our personal collection.*