Wedding Customs & Traditions Forum

engagement photos...yay or nay?

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Re: engagement photos...yay or nay?

  • We splurged a little and got them.  Even though they're obviously called "engagement photos," we wanted nice pictures taken during this great time in our lives -- pictures that didn't center solely on our wedding.
  • We want to have ours done at the cherry blossoms in DC but since they will not be in season when we get married, our photographer said we can do them after the wedding.  I'm not putting on my gown again, but will probably wear a white sundress.  The e-pics are a part of our package.
  • We have also been engaged for a little over 2 years. It pretty much depends what the both of you think. We had ours a few weeks ago. Our e-session was included in our photography package. We love how our pictures turned out! It is nice having time before the wedding to get to know your photographer and see if you feel comfortable around them. It is like a little trial run with your photographer. Another plus of e-session...the pictures capture your "everyday look". Totally worth it if it is in your photography package. Good luck deciding.

  • I wouldd suggest, if it is not part of your wedding package, to have a friend do it.  Everyone has digital cameras these days and there is a lot you can do with them.  Or you could find a student from a nearby college.  They have access to all the best photoshop type programs at the school, so they can do all the fancy stuff the pros to do for free or cheap.  If they do it for free, I suggest throwing them some type of tip, especially if they do a decent amount of editing to the pics.

    My FI and I are debating it, but we have a friend who is in school to be a photog, so we will likely get them done. 

    Good luck.
  • DEFINITELY YAY!! I'm a huge picture person (carry a camera in my purse at all times) and FI and I had a blast doing them. We got lucky cuz they were free, but even if they weren't I would have paid to have them done for sure. As many ladies have already said, you have fun, you can test out poses that work for you, get a feel for your photographer, etc. Ours also doubled as Mother's Day presents to our moms, and they LOVED them, so bonus for us.

    Good luck! :)
  • i vote yay. FI and i are camera whores anyway so even if they weren't included in the package from our photographer, we would have paid a little extra for them or negotiated it into the package. i think e-photo sessions are important because, as PPs have mentioned, it allows you to get to know your photographer and how they work, and lets you get comfortable in front of a professional camera BEFORE the actual wedding day. 

    i think it's also great to have nice, professional pictures for your own use, whether as part of the wedding setup or even to hang in your home. 
  • I would say yay, however, go to jcp or target because they have coupon and nice backgrounds. I only spent 60 bucks plus i have alot of different shots. They are only 3.99 a sheet and they are nice.

  • I say YAY!!!  Especially if they are included in your photography pictures.  They were included in ours, and we absolutely loved it!  Like some of the other ladies have said, it really is a great way to know how your photographer works and for them to get to know how you and the FI when it comes to having pictures taken! 
    Mrs Bullock
  • An engagement photo session is a smart idea because it lets you become comfortable with your photographer. As a wedding photographer, I've had to work with many couples who didn't expect to feel so awkward or uncomfortable with getting their photos taken (and most of the time it shows!). Having an engagement session gives you fun, less formal photos that really showcase your personality, and lets you see what kind of smiles/poses/expressions you really like and which ones you want to avoid on your big day.
  • I say yay. It gives you chance to get to know and be comfortable with your photographer, and it allows them to get to know you. It really makes the wedding day pictures go more smoothly and look more relaxed. Most wedding packages include engagement pictures, and even if they don't I think it's worth the expense. You can even just schedule a short 1/2 hour or hour long sitting with your photographer for both of you rather than a full engagement session. You won't get as many shots, but you still get to know your photographer.
  • From a pro photographer's point of view, I can say without a doubt, that engagement photo sessions are well worth the time and money spent. I've discovered that doing an engagement session helps the couple feel more comfortable and confident that they will look great in their wedding photos, and it also helps me do an even better job for them on the big day.

    Why? Because in the process of creating and viewing a few hundred engagement photos for the bride & groom to be, I am able to see what kinds of angles and poses are most flattering to them. Also, because we always have a blast doing the e-session photos, we feel more like friends than "photographer" and "clients" on the wedding day - making the wedding photography experience more relaxed and natural. If you can get engagement photos from the same photographer who will photograph your wedding, I highly recommend it.

    Engagement photos need not be cheezy, unless you're into that. If you find a photographer with an artistic style you like, you should be very pleased with the engagement portraits they create for you. For a few examples of what is possible in an engagement session, look here:
    http://www.expressiveblog.com/blog/blog1.php/engagement/
  • Yay!  I personally recommended the engagement pictures.  My fiance and I recently did ours, and they came out fantastic.  Our photographer, who will be doing the wedding, did both studio and outdoor shots for us, and they were only a few hundred dollars (very reasonable I thought).  I really like having them.. for one, it captures this moment in time.  Everyone that has looked over them says they just show the love we have for each other.  For two, we have them to use for Save the Date cards, a nice picture for the paper, wonderful wall art for our house, and we can use them at the reception.  In the end, its definitely your decision, but I'd recommend them Laughing
    BabyFruit Ticker
  • My fiance & I got engagement photos done, mostly because we've never had ANY professional pictures of us taken in the 5 years we've been together, and we wanted some for our wedding site, as well as save the dates and our personalized Jones Soda bottles and other things at the reception. (And then we ended up going a totally different way with our stds and didn't even use them.  lol) 
    But, had we not found such an affordable photographer, we probably would have skipped them.  If you don't mind getting just a disc full of your photos, try asking for that option with your photog.  That's what we did and we got the whole shebang (3 outfit changes, over 3 hours of shooting (in 5 different locations) and a disc with over 100 photos) for $150!  :) 
  • I would say look for a photographer that does free engagement pics as a bonus or something, Ive been seeing that in ads, Good Luck!
  • I am all for saving money. The main reason we did engagement pictures was because of who we are. As a couple, we love being in jeans and sweatshirts and, although we'll love our wedding pictures, I'm sure, it's nice to have the engagement pictures because they reflect us more day-to-day.

    Not to get all deep about this either... but I guess it would depend on where you're going in lfie as well. If we were planning on having kids in the next two years, I would have said "no" and opted for saving for a family picture in a few years. Alas, kids are not in the plan so FI and I are "our family" for the moment.

    I do appreciate them. Also, we aren't a very public couple so it helped us to be a little PDA in front of a camera. This will prepare us for the big day. = ]
  • We are having engagment photos taken, but not professionally.  My sister is a good photographer with a professional quailty digital camera she got for college photography class.  And my FMIL has a high quality film camera.  So we are waiting until fall colors come, and then having each of them take some for us.  If you want some, but dont want to pay for a session, having someone you know take them might work.  We figured that way we have photos to send and use to decorate the wedding/our website but can save teh money for the wedding itself.
  • I say yay!  One of my Maids of Honor is a wedding photographer and she and I took photography classes together so I wanted to be able to have her take some professional photos of my fiance and I before the wedding since she's in the wedding party and can't take our pro pictures for us the day of the wedding.  We also need a good candid black and white picture for the newspapers we will be announcing our engagement in (ours locally, the one my fiance's mom works at and mine back home).  We are also going to put lots of photos in different sizes on the tables as center pieces show casing our lives together now and as little kids before we met (instead of doing a slide show since we'd have to rent that equipement) so it'll be nice to have photos where neither one of us is holding the camera. 
  • We were lucky and had family members with us when we got engaged so we have the real thing. To save money we had our photographer take the engagement pictures out of the package since we don't need them.

    I could see them useful if you want to use them with your save the dates or pictures at the wedding. Other than that I'd save the money...
  • what did people wear during their e-sessions? i dont really like the idea of matching outfits, any ideas?  we are doing our in central park probably at the end fo the summer!
  • I would highly suggest them. And some professional photographers may require them. It gives you a chance to get to know your photographer, their style & way of shooting but also gets you comfortable with the camera. I've used our engagment pictures for our save the dates & cancel the date cards (we changed out date after the save the dates went out) I have a bunch of our engagement pictures in cute frames sitting on the top shelf of our desk in our office for now but at the reception they will be placed on a table. I also am using the pictures to create a heart with them and having it printed on a canvas wrap to hang on the wall in either the entry way or cocktail/lounge area. It will then be hung in our home afterwards. My fiance was a little hesitant to having them done since he doesn't like him picture taken but after we did them he said he had the best of time and was so happy with who we picked as our wedding photographer. We did several outfit and location changes as well. We did stuff in the studio, on his property and then went downtown and did like 3 different locations as well. It was REALLY hot out that day and we even changed one outift in the car in a parking garage so we had so much fun! My finace says it was an awesome day cause I was in a skirt a lot and he got to kiss me a ton! If you're wedding photography package doesn't include it then I would just ask how much it cost to do it. If it's under a few hundred I would for sure go for it. We paid like $120 for the shoot and $250 for the images on a disk. And we'll also use the images for a slideshow mixed in with old pictures of ourselves at the reception.
  • I had them done because I wanted some good, professional shots of me and the honey that weren't "staged" or that awkward "hold out the camera yourself" shots. Luckily, his uncle does photography for a living and did ours at no cost (we bought him a bottle of Crown for compensation). I got wonderful shots of us being serious and silly. They will hang in our home when we do get married, and we will have them at our wedding as well.
    I don't think there is a time limit on when you can get them done and call them engagement photos.
    If your hubby to be isn't thrilled with the idea, just let him know that it's important to you to have them done, that is was something you wanted.
    Also, instead of shelling out $$$$, see if any friends/family members are decent with a camera and let them have at it!
  • i would say ya,Since we are still looking for a photographer we found one on craigslist who offered to do them for free so we could see if we liked him. No contract just some free awesome photo's of us
    59 image 4 image 0 image 55image RSVP Date: August 1 2010
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