Are pics and a party neccessary?

nmsterni914

I'm very newly engaged and of course very excited to start planning everything for the wedding but theres a few things about being engaged that I'm just not sure about.  First off, are engagement photos really neccessary?  Several of my friends are already and not all of them had them taken.  What about an engagement party?  I know its my wedding so I can really do what I want but anyone have any pros/cons to having them?

Nicole

Miss Esa

An engagement party is something that is thrown for you, so if someone offers and you really don't want one you can decline it.

Engagement Photos are a great way to get comfortable with your wedding photographer. (If you are using the same photographer for both.)

Beads921

E-pics came with the photography package we got for our wedding. I think they were included in almost every package I looked at.

We didn't have an engagement party though. No one offered and we weren't about to throw one for ourselves (although some people do). I really don't think they're necessary.

nikole712

Congratulations on your engagement!

We just had a small engagement dinner hosted by my parents with just my siblings and my FI's parents and sibling in attendance. It was a very nice low key way to celebrate our engagement.

Our E-pics are included with our photography package although we have not scheduled them yet.

yoshijo

My parents threw us an engagement party.To us, engagement pics were an unnecessary expense and we would rather use the money to put into our wedding. We really enjoy looking at photos from the night we got engaged and to us those are our engagement pics.

BostonGIrl4732

Congrats!  Nobody threw us an engagement party so we didn't have on.  

We are getting e-pics because they are a part of the package (nearly all packages that I looked at had them).  I hate getting my photo taken so I'm hoping that I like some of our e-pics so I'll feel more comfortable for the wedding.  Plus I like the idea of having pictures of us in normal clothes and hope they have a longer "shelf" life than the wedding photos.

bridalmarch

No party for us, but we did to an engagement session. We have a 15 month old daughter and our family pictures were sorely lacking so we did sort of a family/engagement combo.  Our photographers are a husband and wife team and it was nice to get to know them and their shooting style. 

Amanda1443994

Congrats!

We did have an engagemetn party, but we did not get E-Pics. The e-pics were offered for free with our photography package but we decided not to take them anyway. We were never going to use them for STDs or anything like that so there was no point for us.

cwaggoner07

As you can see, it's really up to each individual couple, and there's no wrong way to do it (unless you are throwing yourself a party, which is a no-no). We didn't do engagement pics, as time escaped us and we never got them done (pretty short engagement).

pomundson0

Congrats on your engagement!

We found a listing on LivingSocial for an hour long photography session on location for an awesome price, that's what really cinched the E-pics for us (money was tight)  I love them so much and being the one who is usually behind the camera, it's great to have someone else take a few pics of you two who knows what they're doing  We actually incorperated a lot of them into our guestbook And we have since booked her for the wedding after loving her shots as much as we did. Nobody offered to throw us an E-party so we didn't get one.  I do wish his mom would have followed through and submitted the announcement to the local paper though, I'm a sucker for memerobilia, even though i can't spell it!  

mattycam

We didn't have an engagement party but my H and I did host a "meet and greet" for the bridal party. We thought it would be great for everyone to meet at least once under a casual setting before the wedding. We took engagement photos as well.

As mentioned, engagement party and photos are not a must.