Engagement Photo Ideas | Colorado Wedding Photographer

How to make the most out of your Engagement Session

Putting together your engagement shoot can always be a fun time. For most couples, this could be the first time you’ve had a professional photography session together. Still riding that cloud of just getting engaged, this time can be a real exciting process. So, where do you start?

First things first, find a photographer. This topic can have it’s own blog, so I’ll just keep it simple. Find a photographer that gives you that “Woowww” feeling. Look at their work and imagine yourself in the photos and envision how you would feel. Most likely this is the same photographer that will be capturing your wedding day, so lead that search on the your “wants” over budget. Then close the gap to finding your perfect photographer.

Now that you have found the photographer of your dreams, here are a few ideas on how to fill in the details of your engagement session.

Make It Personal

Grab a pen & paper and write a list of things that you love together. Say you both enjoy camping. You could plan a fun camping weekend together and schedule your photographer to come out on one of the days. Why schedule a photography session around your schedule, when you can create a get-away/adventure weekend and make the session a part of a special memory. Or maybe you have a favorite bar or coffee house that you have a lot of great memories attached to. Being the good regulars you are, why not ask them if you can have your session at their establishment. I’m sure they will be more then willing to help out with your engagement, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their high volume times. And it will be free advertising for them when you and the photographer tag them and let them use the images for social media. Everyone wins in this situation.

These are just a few ideas that can manifest from putting a pen to paper.

Tis What Season?

The season you prefer will most likely be chosen, after you decide what you’ll be doing during the session. For example, If you wanted to go snowshoeing during your engagement shoot, obviously you’ll be planning your session in the winter.

Before planning what season, I would suggest first picking out a date/time of year for your wedding day. That will give you a window of when you would want your engagement photos finished by. Especially if you are using them for save-the-dates. I would say at least 3 months before your wedding date. And unless you plan your engagement photos a year before your wedding, they will most likely be during a different season. Which, I believe is not a bad thing. Say, you plan on having your wedding in the fall surrounded by the change of aspen trees. Since you will have great professional photos with fall colors, maybe having your engagement on a beautiful snowy winter day would be ideal.

Again, a lot of this will tie into your vision of what your engagement day is going to look like.

Location

By now, you can probably see how everything is all smoothly tying together. If you’ve already decided on what you will be doing during your engagement, some things may not even apply or need to be decided. The season of the year wouldn’t really matter if you planned to have your shoot in a coffee house wouldn’t it? So don’t stress the details. Once you take the action of planning, it will all line up with ease.

For the location, first you want to start out at the base. Outdoors, indoors, nature, urban, etc. And like mentioned above, depending on your personal vision, the location might have already been decided. Here are a few ideas to get your mind thinking.

• The place you first met

• Where you got engaged

• Your home or backyard

• Your favorite sports team/live music venue

• Your favorite hiking trail/mountain peak

• Places you both love

Again, make the location personal to what you both love.

What To Wear

This is another topic that is worthy of it’s own blog, but wanted to at least mention it. The main thing I want to highlight on what to wear is “Dress for Comfort”. If you are planning on doing a mountain-esque, winter session, you probably wouldn’t want to just wear a dress with open-toe shoes. Now if you really want that shot of you on top of a snow capped mountain in your heals and dress, make that your secondary outfit and schedule it for the first or last shot of the session. Being underdressed in an environment like that will be a bit more enjoyable for twenty minutes than say, two hours. Wear something comfortable like hiking boots, warm clothing, beanie, gloves. For one, if you are comfortable, you look comfortable in the photo. Two, it looks the part for the scene or environment and really puts a story to the image.

If you have any questions on your specific day and timeline, I am an open book. Please feel free to message me anytime. And if you want to no more about my booking process or availability, I look forward to hearing from you.