Your Engagement Shoot: What to Expect

Most couples tell me they hate having their photograph taken. An engagement shoot is the simplest fix for that — an hour together before the wedding, with no schedule, no guests and nothing riding on it.

Why couples bother

The honest reason is nerves. On your wedding day you’ll have twenty minutes for portraits and a lot going on in your head. If we’ve already spent an hour together, you know how I work, I know how you two are with each other, and none of it feels strange. Couples who’ve done a shoot beforehand are visibly more relaxed in their wedding photographs — it’s the single most reliable difference I see.

What actually happens

Very little, which is the point. We walk, we talk, you two mostly ignore me. I’ll occasionally suggest where to stand or which way the light is better, but there’s no posing and no long list of shots to get through. Most couples relax after about ten minutes and forget the camera is there.

Ten minutes in, most couples stop noticing the camera — which is when the good photographs start.

Where to do it

Somewhere that means something to you beats somewhere conventionally pretty. The park you walk in, the place you met, the pub you always end up at. Failing that, the West Midlands has no shortage of options — parks, canals, woodland and a good deal of countryside within twenty minutes of the city. If you’d like, we can shoot at your wedding venue, which has the useful side effect of letting me scout it properly beforehand.

What to wear

Clothes you already own and feel comfortable in. Something you keep tugging at will show in every frame. Coordinate loosely rather than matching exactly, avoid big logos and busy patterns, and bring a second option if you can’t decide — changing halfway through is easy and gives the set some variety.

Nobody is naturally good at being photographed. They just get used to it.Nicola Gotts

What you’ll do with the photographs

More than you’d think. Save the dates and invitations are the obvious ones, but couples also use them on a wedding website, in an order of service, as a guest book to sign at the reception, or simply framed at home. And you get a set of nice photographs of the two of you together, which most couples turn out not to have. It’s a natural first step into the wedding photography side of things, and a good way to make sure we get on before the day itself.