Engagement Shoots
YOUR LOVE STORY STARTS HERE
Engagement Shoots serve a couple different functions in the planning of a wedding. First and foremost, they're a way to get the images you'll need for invitations, save-the-date cards, social media
announcements, all at once. Show off your personality and what drew you together.
They're also great as practice for your wedding's formal photos, as a couple.
Having photos made makes lots of people nervous,
and these low-pressure shoots help to reassure the super-camera-shy among us, that it doesn't have to hurt, and help you past some of the obstacles to working naturally, on-camera.
You could also look at your engagement shoot
like a Cake Tasting appointment, to help you find,
and choose, the right photographer.
It's not uncommon to attach a Consultation to
your photoshoot, where we can sit down and talk through wedding plans, your tastes, and all the coverage options for your wedding day.
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I think it helps to know each other, going in.
Your Love Story, Chapter 1
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The best thing about planning a wedding is testing cakes. I'm not going to even try to compete with that. Free cake is magic. What I can do, is come in a distant second, giving you the opportunity to remember in the hectic messy rush of planning a wedding, why you're doing all this planning in the first place. Think of your engagement shoot as your day off from all that stress.
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You're both someplace with no pressures or demands; you're all dressed up, and either somewhere super-scenic, or laughing way too hard in the studio. There aren't a lot of easier, more productive ways to spend an hour. And what you get from it lasts the rest of your life. The ideal excuse to take a romantic walk, tell somebody who's actually interested, about how you fell in love, and come away from it with images that actually show the way you feel, without contrivance, heavy posing, or fake smiles. This is my favorite kind of photoshoot, I think, because it's genuine, and natural and fun.
The Power Couple
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Let's be honest, so much of who we love comes down to what a couple loves together. Shared obsessions, hobbies, and fandoms, are what set so many couples on the path to where they are, it's only natural to get those things involved. You met by being the only two people dressed as Jedi, at the Star Wars midnight premiere? Your World Of Warcraft guild in college introduced you? She proposed via a D&D Campaign?
These things are central to the story that you tell when people ask you how you met. Don't leave them out, in favor of something generic, when you have the chance to bring those things to life and tell your story!
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Power Couple engagement shoots are built to bring a shared reality to life, so to help that along, they come with credit for high end compositing and special effects on up to 10 of your shoot's images, along with the standard fare your moms are asking for. We'll customize the shoot to build you images that speak to who you really are together, in this world, and any others where the two of you reside.
The Elope
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Kind of a Wed-Engagement Hybrid. Whether you ran away to Vegas, tied the knot during a Deployment, or got married on a cruise, or if you just went the pragmatic route and the only guest invited to your wedding was your friendly County Clerk, you still have family and friends you want to mention your new relationship status to.
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Enter "The Elope" - a custom styled-wedding-shoot designed to get you all the images you'll miss by forgoing a traditional ceremony. You can bring up to a dozen other people to take part, comprising parents, maid-of-honor and best-man, whoever you call family.
Or you can stick to just the two of you, and play it by-the-book. The goal is getting you the photos you miss out on, for everything from social medial to thank-you-cards for gifts that people mail, and even credit for a good-sized canvas print to hang when your place is all set up.
Whether Elvis married you last week, or you didn't have the budget ten years ago to hire a photographer for your simple backyard wedding, but now you'd really like to do it right, "The Elope" means that you don't need to go without great wedding images.
How to Prepare for Your Photoshoot
Let go of the idea that you need to be a professional model to get/deserve great images. It won't be hard, and you don't need to 'perform right' for the camera. Being yourselves will be enough.
Wear clothes that you can move in, comfortably. This sounds obvious, but people overlook it.
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I never recommend going overboard on makeup in the age of photoshop, but hair's a very different story. It's the one variable your photographer has no control over, and a photoshoot like this is going to stick around a while. If there ever was a time to be professionally styled, getting on-camera is that day.
Be in Love.