How to plan your Engagement Session in Raleigh or Durham
Your engagement session is coming up quick, and surprise! You’ve never done an engagement session before. Yayyy new things. Now before getting too far into it, it’s important to mention a few things.
1- Your engagement session is not your wedding day.
While an engagement session might have began out of the need to grab pictures to announce your engagement, (most likely a *few* people know by now), the modern engagement session is really just a chance for us to work together before your wedding day and get some picture taking practice in. That’s right, it’s just a test run, so deep breaths in and out. That means the weather doesn’t have to be perfect, your hair can be not cooperating, and if you’re really nervous about what the sunshine’s gonna do, we can always reschedule if we need to. This is a chance for me as a photographer to experiment with what light and stances work best on you, see how you interact with each other, and get to know you both.
2- The ONLY important thing is that the two of you are there.
Of course, the time, location, season, and weather all matter, but those are all after thoughts. The important thing about your engagement session, from a photography standpoint is you. As a professional I can make some fun stuff in any situation, but what I can’t do is create people or fake the look in your eyes when the two of you connect. Everything about your engagement session should be related to YOU. More on this later.
3- Your engagement session is a great excuse to visit some really cool places and get some incredible portraits while you’re doing it.
This is one of those things, that if we keep this in mind, we can have some fun with, but if we make it the priority and ignore the other two steps, things kind of fall apart. If you prioritize putting you into your engagement session AND you can make sure it’s not going to amp up the stress levels before the wedding day, then we can take this into consideration and truly make something epic. I’ll get into locations a bit more below, but don’t think of your engagement session as taking pictures at the same state park all your friends had theirs done in (unless that’s what you want). Think of the places you first met, what you enjoy doing on a Friday night, a city or hike you’ve always wanted to visit, or maybe just your house on a lazy Sunday morning, which is what you both love anyway.
What to wear?
Since my usual reader here is the bride, (sorry guys), this is generally the question I get most. Generally speaking there’s only two rules to what you should wear to your engagement session: 1- coordinate, don’t match, and 2- wear something you’re relatively comfortable in.
Girls- If your date nights include a cute short dress and four inch heels, wonderful! totally rock it! but if you’ve never worn heels in your life, this isn’t the place to start, especially if you want a location that involves a lot of walking.
Guys- Impressing her is never a bad idea. For some guys, that’s a suit and tie, for others of us… it’s a shower and less muddy pair of jeans than we wore yesterday. Whatever you would do to look good for her is fine. Don’t worry about dressing up to the nines if that’s not the way you both would normally be around each other… but if she wants you to… making her happy isn’t a bad idea either.
Casual:
Jeans & T shirt
Jeans & Button down
Jeans & Suit Jacket
Fancy:
Dress pants and Dress Shirt
Suit
Nice jeans and dress shirt
Don’t feel bad about scrolling through pinterest for different outfits or color palates… just leave the hearts in hand shapes and DIY apartment built only from pallets alone. Trust me. It’s for the best.
Where should we do our engagement session?
When someone mentions ‘engagement photos’, the first thing that usually comes to mind is some pretty park with a gazebo and a fish pond. While fish ponds are great, and gazebos are a solid ‘meh’, we can do better than that.
What we’re not trying to do is make some fake, fancy looking pictures where you nuzzle up 2 inches from each other’s faces for two hours and stare at some camera trying to fake laugh until we get ‘your real smile’ that your mother will probably just lovingly remind you you’re not using after the fact anyway. In order to help get away from this mentality, let’s go on the most fun date you can possibly have with a third wheel that you kind of know, but won’t stop taking your picture. I promise it’s more fun and far less creepy than I just made that sound. Maybe.
For local sessions, this means we can go grab a drink, walk through the park, take a hike, head to the beach, or hang out at your place while you watch netflix (just no chilling. I’m not that kind of photographer).
While some people like doing their engagement session close to home, others want a location that’s a bit more dressed up or special to them, such as The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, the North Carolina beaches, a plantation in Charleston, the New York City Skyline seen from Hoboken, or a campground in Maine.
The best place to start when it comes to choosing a location for your engagement session is by thinking about what fits the both of you. You’ve got a whole weekend free, and open budget. What do you both do? Do you head downtown, grab some drinks and walk around? Do you go explore somewhere new? Maybe hop on a plane or in the car for a quick getaway? Do you go hiking, and try to find a new trail you’ve never seen? Any of these things can easily be incorporated into your images, and the more YOU enjoy them as a couple, the less ‘cheesy photo session’ happens, and the more ‘candid, fun, epic portraiture’ begins.
It’s safe to say I spend a decent amount of time on airplanes, so I’ve learned my way around the travel world quite a bit. The bonus for you? Any travel costs associated with these sessions are priced out as low as possible to give us both the extra little push to go somewhere awesome and make sure that a ton of travel fees don’t stop you from getting the memories you deserve.
Life’s short. Let’s make some memories that last.
Check out some specific engagement sessions I’ve done in different locations around the Triangle for some ideas of what your session might look like.
NC
Pullen Park in Raleigh
Yates Mill in Raleigh
Downtown Raleigh
The Biltmore Estate
New Bern
JC Raulston Arboretum
American Tobacco Campus (Pictured above)
NY/NJ
FAQ:
What do I bring?
A change of clothes if you so desire. Otherwise nothing. If you have specific props for your wedding day, thank you cards, or something similar, you can bring them along, but I want a majority of the shoot to be about the two of you. Not an idea you found online.
What if it rains?
This is one of those ‘your call’ things. Rain looks good. Simple as that. It can make for a fun session, and due to my knowledge of off camera lighting, we can make some incredible stuff with it…. if you’re willing to have some fun in it. If rain stresses you out, and you would be miserable the entire time? We’ll reschedule. If you’re a puddle-jumper and umbrella donned, rain dancing person, we’ll go have some fun. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve shot an engagement session during a flood warning.
I want to travel for my engagement session. How much does it cost?
Usually that cost winds up being a one night’s stay at a hotel (affordable but safe) in the area, any permits we’d need to shoot at that location, and the cheapest flight I can find to get us there, if one’s needed at all. If your destination is under four hours away from my place, I’ll drive it in my super sweet (get ready to be jealous gentlemen)…. Toyota Prius… (with lifted seats and a stock 7 hamster powered engine). Anything over 4 hours and we’ll find me the cheapest plane ticket we can. Most of my couples that do destination engagement photos wind up spending between $200-500 and getting some pretty incredible pictures because of it.
Can I bring a pet?
If you’d like to, but you’ll need to have someone else tag along to take them home at one point. Our furry friends area great, but they require attention and while we’re happy to have them on the shoot, they can’t steal ALL of your limelight.
The location I’m looking at has a permit fee. What now?
If you’re looking to shoot at that specific location, that means we have to play by their rules. Any fees associated with a location would be your responsibility to cover, however I will usually try to help you however I can by searching for similar (non permit requiring) locations. If a previous client has paid for a yearly permit to a location and that permit is still valid, you will only have to pay half price, and the previous client gets some cash back as print credit to encourage using a lot of the same places and keep costs down for everyone. (You can ask me which places I have active permits to at any point). We can discuss who will pick up the permit and do the paperwork, but in most cases it is the client’s responsibility to do so.
WHAT DO I DO WITH MY HANDS.
Don’t let them hang by your sides like you’re scared to death, giving a speech to your entire company against your own will. That’s about it. Girls, you can have your hands folded, fingers locked, hands on hips, or of course around your hubby to be. Guys, hands on your lady is always the best… I’ll give you a second to enjoy that before I clarify…. (I make an awesome wingman, right?) okay. now… if your hands aren’t on her, hands in pockets or crossed works well. You can also throw your hand on your hip, but I’m not promising not to make fun of you.
Posing tips?
We’ll take about ten minutes before we start shooting to cover some posing basics, but here’s some tips to get you started as far as good practice goes for having your picture taken. Again, we’re going for natural, and in the moment, but this is a good starting point.
Girls
-You know that ‘hip pop’ thing you do where your weight falls to one side (usually when you’re mad at us?) That’s the best way to stand (without the accompanying look at least). You want your weight pushed away from the camera, as anything you push towards the camera, will look a bit bigger. Use that information however you’d like to. When you walk, cross your feet over each other (kind of like an extreme DUI test) and it will help with slimming as well. Lastly, keeping one leg bent, with your toe pointed to the ground will also make for a flattering look.
Guys
-When you’re standing, stand with your feet shoulder width apart, trying to stay as comfortable as possible, but also doing your best to have a good ‘strong’ stance (ie- no hip pop. I mean, you can, but it’s gonna look weird, and if you do it better than her, she’s gonna get mad). Try to keep every joint at least a little bent, specifically knees and elbows, you don’t want to look freaked out. Photographers can smell fear and there’s likely one hiding in the bushes. We have a thing for hiding in bushes.
In Closing
To wrap it all up, of course there’s a lot to choose from while you’re planning your engagement session, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Take things little by little, and again make sure that everything fits the two of you and you make it something fun. Don’t get locked into the idea of what you’ve seen in the past, and don’t be afraid to suggest something new. Let’s make some magic.
These images were taken with combinations of a Nikon D4s, Nikon D750, Nikkor 85mm 1.4G, Nikkor 45mm Tilt Shift, Nikkor 24mm 1.4G, Nikkor 70-200MM F/2.8G and three off camera SN-910 Speedlights with an assortment of MagMod modifiers. All images color corrected with Adobe Lightroom and none of them are photoshopped.