Engagement pictures worth it?

newgate309

The photographer I'm pretty set on includes an engagement session in her price, but we're thinking about maybe cutting it out to save some money. The only use I can see for e-pics is STD cards, but we could just have someone take a nice picture for that... doesn't really seem worth the cost. Thoughts?

soontobemrsdavis

if you can save money, I would skip it.  I went with a freelancer off of criaglist for free.  Got enough pics to do what we needed to do(STDs and a couple things at the ceremony).  If you arent picture framing people i would nix epics.

mbcdefg

I wanted to get them done so that we would get used to being in front of a camera and so we could get a feel for our photographer's style and personality. I explained it this way to FI, and he agreed, that I'd rather find out before our wedding if we didn't like the photographer's actual photos or personality so that we could bail out and find someone else (and only have to lose a deposit, rather than pay the whole bill and have sucky wedding photos).

We just got ours yesterday and we love them, and loved working with our photographer, so in my opinion it was worth doing e-pics for the peace of mind. I don't know if we plan to do anything with the pics other than maybe frame one or two, but it's nice to have good pics of us in everyday clothes. You could use them for an engagement announcement in the newspaper if you want.

kewltif

I'm glad that we had e-pics done.

Is this a substantial amount of money you could save?

uppereastgirl

We didn't do it, and I've never regretted that decision.  Depends on what you'd do with the pictures.  For us the answer was "no idea", so we didn't bother.

yankees320

We didn't have formal engagement pictures, but MIL took a bunch of different poses of us at our engagement party.  We used these pics on our STD's, and it was fine- especially for free! 

Although, mbc makes a good point about getting to know your photographer.

aquagurl612

For DH and I was worth it. We aren't picture people so it is nice to have some nice pictures. We had a photography student do them for $60 and they came out wonderful.

DS0305

I don't think it's necessary, but I'm so glad we did engagement pictures.  We don't have any really nice pictures of us, so it was nice to have professional pictures taken.  Plus, we brought my dogs with us and it was nice to get some shots of us with the dogs (who we also don't have many nice pictures of!)

I already have a few of the pictures from our session on our desk at work.  And once we start decorating our house, I plan on ordering more of our pictures for our house.  I also want to use those pictures for our guestbook.

So to me, I really thought the engagement session was worth it.

cherylanddan0706

Neither (new and old) photogs would give us anything back if we didn't (new photog offered another session after the wedding). So I would be sure they take money off.

jaimelody

I would check to see how much money that would save you. Ours were included in the package and I don't think we would have gotten any price reduction if we didn't do it. If you don't want the epics, what about asking for a TTD session instead? Just throwing it out there.

newgate309

Thanks for the replies! I'm waiting to hear back on what the price difference would be. She mentioned that she's perfectly willing to customize a package to fit our budget, so I'm hoping it will cut out a few hundred! I think it's nice to do, but if it'll save us a decent amount, we could live without it.

melissa82

We did them and I thought they were a complete waste of time pretty much. We didn't end up doing anything with them--I thought maybe I'd use them for table numbers or something, but I didn't and I think guest books are silly (for me, it'd be another thing collecting dust that we'd never look at) so I would save the money if it's a significant amount.

If one or both of you is really shy or uncomfortable taking photos, then it might be a good way to warm up, etc., like mbc said, but I would think most people would just get used to it pretty quickly on the wedding day.

Magoobie1001

We had them done, and I am glad we did.  It gave us a chance to feel more comfortable with the photographer and then afterwards we were able to tell him what we liked and didnt like so it would be perfected for the wedding.  I do think that if its a significant amount of money you would save, you can totally do without them. They arent a necessity

laurenlacey

ditto mbcdefg, it helps you to get used to being in front of the camera and working with the photographer.

If you're already into that, or good at that, or feel comfortable with the photographer, I think you could easily skip it.

I love my e-pics, but we have NO photos of us together, so it's nice to have a few laying around.

mbcdefg

I will add that FI and I are not too comfortable being photographed, and FI was grumbling as we headed to the e-pics session about having to do it ... but by the end he had a great time and really liked our photographer, and he asked me every day, "Did the photog send us the pics?" And once they came in he absolutely loved them.

Plus, photography is a HUGE thing for me, and the one thing that I don't think I could be able to "get over" if they didn't go right. If our flowers or cake or limos suck, I can forget about it within a day or two ... but I think I'd just be really sad for a long time if our photos weren't nice. For me, the e-pics were mainly just to be certain that we'd chosen a good photographer, which I'm now confident about.

And another reason is that he threw them in for free :P He has two packages, and we wanted the lower-priced one (the more expensive one included an e-pics session). I mentioned in our initial meeting that we were interested in e-pics, and he quickly replied, "Oh, I'll just do them for no additional charge." Sounded good to me!

Laurms15

We weren't going to do it but I'm so glad we did. We got to know our photog and feel comfortable with him, and now we have some really cute photos around.

Someone on my club board did her e-pics and realized that she hated his work and that he was really unprofessional to work with and they were able to get out of it and get a new photog who they love. She was glad she didn't wait till the wedding day.

newgate309

Well, it turns out she won't take any money off for not doing the engagement pictures... which seems really weird to me, because it's a good chunk of her time. If we choose not to do them, we'd just get an extra 8x10 wedding picture. So there goes that idea! Oh well. I guess we'll just do the e-pics