The ring is bought, the question popped and the answer is “Yes”. Now begins the engagement period of your life as a couple. In the weeks and months ahead you will be making decisions on everything from setting a wedding date, selecting attendants, and choosing a venue for the wedding to hiring a photographer to record one of the most memorable days of your life. There are several important decisions couples need to make before posing for your engagement photographs. You need to interview and hire a photographer, create engagement photo ideas for choosing a theme and setting for your photo shoot, and know how you want to use your photos after they are created. Click here if you want to know more about us at engagement photo ideas.
Interview and Select Your Engagement Photo Photographer
A great way to try out the photographer you are considering for taking your wedding photographs is to engage him or her to take your engagement photos. You want to choose a photographer who is a good match for your personalities, suites your style and listens seriously to your ideas and thoughts as well as contributing ideas. Ask photographers how many of their engagement photo clients also hire them for their wedding photographs. This indicates satisfaction with their work. Ask them how they generally find their clients. If their clients come to them through referrals, this also indicates appreciation and approval of their previous work.
As a team, the three of you can generate great engagement photo ideas for creating wonderful shots of you as a couple. Review their portfolios and ask about the locations in which the couples’ shots are taken. Find out why these locations were selected and what they have to do with the couples. You want a photographer who will care about choosing the right location for your personalities and making shots that genuinely reflect the two of you.
Select a Location and Theme for Your Engagement Photo Ideas Shoot
You and your future spouse need to make plans before your shooting appointment to assure that the pictures taken reflect your personalities and lifestyle, your interests and spirit. Photographs serve as memories. On your fiftieth wedding anniversary you want to look at these and see a reflection of your budding relationship at the beginning of your life together. A creative engagement photo tells a story about you as a couple. It should reflect some aspect of what makes the two of you unique and your togetherness special. To generate interesting engagement photo ideas make a list of things about the two of you and what you enjoy doing together. Think about where you met, where you had your first or an especially memorable date, your favorite café or restaurant, or things you enjoy doing together. Consider some popular as well as unique and creative locations for your shoot, such as a:
- beach
- field, pasture or wildflower meadow
- sidewalk café’
- city or streetscape
- barn
- bridge
- picnic
- botanical or other garden
- butterfly house
- vineyard
- creek or riverside
- sheltering tree
- dance class
- carnival
- playground
- cozy room, with a fireplace
- bakery
- park
Engagement Photo Ideas
Perhaps you want a really cool landscape or city skyline in your photos. Maybe you are better suited to a location with lots of bright colors and movement. Choosing the appropriate shooting location for the two of you will assure that you look more genuine in your shots. Once you have chosen your location, explore the space and have fun with it. Being too stiff or posed will look unnatural. You are far more likely to be relaxed and comfortable in a familiar or interesting setting that reflects the real you.
Along with selecting your location, engagement photo ideas will be generated when you choose a theme through which to help the photographer tell a story about you as a couple. Are you funny, adventurous, romantic, urban, nature-loving, creative or off-beat? Decide together what you want the final look of your photos to show about you. Build your theme around the result you want. Your theme can be movie inspired, adventurous, based on your chosen location, seasonal, or focused around an activity that you enjoy together, such as cooking, bowling or dancing. Carry it through with the clothes you wear for the shoot and any props you and your photographer choose to include. Props can create different atmospheres, such as cute, serious, vintage, urban or rustic. Some couples choose to include pets or color-coordinate their clothing. Others use balloons, hats, bicycles, street lights or benches. Visually interesting backgrounds and creative props can create a unique engagement photo for a couple.
Make Good Use of Your Engagement Photographs
Engagement photo ideas are not limited to creating them. After your photo shoot you will have a great portrait of the two of you. There are more uses today for an engagement portrait than simply for a newspaper announcement of your engagement. Many couples are using them on their save the date mailings. Your personal shots also make great wedding website slideshows. Consider including them on your table number cards at the wedding, so guests can mingle and see all the different poses as they visit from table to table at your reception. Include them in your guest book on the various pages. Your engagement portrait is perfect for the cover of your wedding program.
Your photography session will help you get to know your chosen wedding photographer and give him or her the chance to know you as a couple. Knowing and being comfortable with each other helps banish camera shyness when the big day comes. Great engagement photo ideas lead to wonderful photographs for preserving your memories.
