I’m a few days behind on this weeks post, and didn’t get a chance to post last week, so I’ve decided that my subject be something that I’ve been thinking about posting for a very long time, and that is very important to me.

More often then I’d like to, I hear “oh I don’t need an engagement session.” Normally my next question is why. Sometimes the answer is because they have been together for a long time, because they aren’t doing save the dates or because they don’t need any more photos. Obviously I love photos, which is evidenced by the amount of them hanging on my walls, but that isn’t why I think engagements are important. The following are my top 3 reasons why you should take engagement photos:

“What do you want me to do?”: I hear this question on almost every engagement session. Most of my couples have never been engaged before, and never had photos like that taken of themselves. It can be a bit nerve wracking because you just don’t know what to do. There isn’t an instruction manual for engagement photos, it’s up to your photographer to guide you. On the flip side of this, your photographer will have a playbook of instructions and poses they use when working with couples. From my experience, sometimes a particular pose or the wording of an instruction doesn’t always work with everyone. During your engagement session your photographer can figure out what poses are amazing for the two of you, and the best style of instruction gets the desired result. All of this leading to a less stressful and better photo result on your wedding day.

“Why are there so many strangers in the room?”: This is the last thing I would ever want to hear on someone’s wedding day. It is one of the most important days of your life and you don’t want to spend it surrounded my strangers. Having relationships with my clients is one of the most important thing to me, because I want it to feel like an old friend is walking into the room. I want you to trust me as a photographer and as a friend, and that is hard to do if we haven’t spent much time together. Your engagement session is just another opportunity to get to know your photographer. I can’t even count how many times my engagement sessions have resulted in lots of laughs and great memories; memories that I share with my clients and that we carry into our interactions on your wedding day. I don’t want to intrude on your personal moments, but be a part of them.

“Will my photos be good?”: Getting a chance to work with your wedding photographer is going to make you feel much more relaxed and comfortable about the end result on your wedding day. After I had my own engagement photos taken all I could think of is “omg, I hope they turned out ok!” Then after I saw just a few I knew they would be fantastic and I had nothing to worry about it. On my wedding day, I never had that thought!! I had already worked with my photographer, I already knew she could capture my new husband and I very well, and I never stressed at all about how the photos would turn out. It was such a relief!

I feel strongly about engagement sessions. My husband calls it my “engagement session spiel” and could probably recite it from memory. The results, beyond photos, that client receives is just so invaluable to me. I have included an engagement session with every wedding package because it’s a part of my process. When I am approached my clients to do an engagement session, I strongly urge them to find their wedding photographer first.

Also, because it needs mentioning, it’s also fun to be able to have more photos of the two of you where you can be even more creative and show your personality. I enjoy showing off who my clients really are in their photos, and it’s a great way to share that with family and friends.

I’m glad I was able to share something so important and close to my heart today! And a few engagement photos from Ashly and Waylon’s engagement session. I’m so excited to join them on their wedding day in July

-Meghan