Engagement Photos: Prep

Wedding Wednesday has quickly become one of my favorite series to share with you guys! If you’ve followed along with C&C for a while, you’ve caught our proposal story, my ‘How She Asked’ Bridesmaid proposal story, our engagement parties and now I’m sharing our engagement photos! Well, the first round.

This part was especially fun for me. I shoot with Alex regularly for my blog photos and having RJ crash a shoot, just felt like a super fun work day (I say super fun, because every time I shoot with Alex is so fun anyways!). I’m breaking this series into three parts so I can share how to prep for your engagement photos, picking your outfits and finally shooting your photos. Plus, I’ll be sharing some wedding updates and more fun stuff along the way!

Drumroll please.. this is our wedding venue!! How gorgeous is it?! This is just the first little section, when you enter the property. The day we went to visit, it was literally love at first sight. Picking where to shoot was a challenge, but once I realized we were able to shoot on our venue it was a no brainer.

If you are not able to shoot on your venue site or you don’t want to, here’s a few of my tips for picking a site to shoot:

1. Pick a ‘Vibe’. Are you going for romantic mixed with rustic? Maybe you want a beachy vibe? Is your thing edgy or relaxed? Picking your overall vibe is super important. Our whole wedding has a ‘Rustic Romance‘ theme and I knew I wanted that to be carried out throughout our entire process, including engagement photos.

2. Choose a Location. My friend Natalie shot her photos at the beach, I’ve seen people shoot them in their house or around their favorite spots in town. Some photos are gorgeous in a field of flowers or cotton. Maybe you have a special date spot, park or somewhere scenic in your city. Make sure to stay true to yourself and they will be gorgeous. I knew having the dogs in our photos was a must, so I knew I needed to find somewhere pup-friendly.

3. Finding a Photographer. This part was not even a question in my brain, I knew Alex would be my photographer. (The harder part for me was finding a wedding photographer, since Alex will be a bridesmaid but that’s another story for another day) I suggest once you find your photographer, create a Pinterest board and save ideas of poses, outfits and props.

Most likely, the man will be less comfortable in front of a camera than you are. I think it’s great to get your fiancé to loosen up a bit before you go.. for RJ that was enjoying a couple of his favorite beers (just don’t let him drink too much!), if your man isn’t much of a drinker let him play his favorite video game, listen to his favorite playlist or bring his favorite treat (chocolate, cupcake, etc.) to the shoot.

Also, I knew RJ would be too posed in the beginning. I definitely wanted to shoot a picnic scene but I knew we wouldn’t use any of these shots for our Save the Dates. I also figured this would be the easiest and most fun way to loosen up before we got to the more posed, cheesy, staring into each other’s eyes poses. So we started here!

My final pre-shoot tip is to bring a friend or two. I brought two of my bridesmaids to help. One bridesmaid was on dog duty, watching the pups between shots and making sure they didn’t get over heated or go for an afternoon swim in the lake, ha!

My second bridesmaid came along to help with outfits, poses, and make sure my vibe was being captured. I spoke with the photographer about all this before hand as well, but I feel it’s often easy for us to get caught up in shooting and miss a certain pose or my dress is ruffled, etc. This bridesmaid pulled up my Pinterest board and made sure we captured all the shots I had saved and she also helped gather all our props (food, blankets, etc.) while RJ and I were changing. We had to make sure we moved quickly because we wanted to capture as much as we could in ‘golden hour’.

Honestly, the picnic scene was a little hectic while shooting. The first 50ish shots were RJ making this huge, open mouth face and pushing the swing so high I almost fell out. After we got the hang of it though it turned out so fun and I think Alex was really able to catch our true personalities in these shots. If you live in the TN/Georgia area (Alex travels some!), you can book her through her site: A. Bonds Productions, follow her Instagram or check out her Facebook page.

Be sure to check back next week for more engagement pictures and tips on how to pick both His & Her outfits! I hope you have a wonderful hump day! Xo