Your Guide to the Engagement Session

Congratulations, you’re engaged! In the flurry of engagement parties and touring wedding venues we wonder if your mind has begun to wander toward thoughts of your engagement session. Should my wedding photographer also be our engagement session photographer? Where should we take engagement photos? What will we wear? Do we even need an engagement session? If any of the questions above have been living rent free in your mind, read on.

We get it. Years ago, engagement sessions felt contrived, forced, and lacked inspiration. It IS possible to dream bigger and have an engagement session that not only results in beautiful images, but also builds excitement toward your wedding day and draws your partner and you closer together. Done well, engagement sessions often include meaningful landscapes, elevated styling, and authentic love stories as unique as the couples telling them. Exploring Chicago and beyond, creating beautiful imagery full of life and love – that’s what your engagement session could be!

Why You Want an Engagement Session

Your wedding day is a highly anticipated life event centered around you and your love, and your engagement session should conjure up similar feelings of excitement and celebration. At the very least, your engagement session should help lower any wedding related stress and increase your confidence in front of the camera. One of the most effective ways to ensure those outcomes is to design your engagement session around your interests, personality, and unique love story.

Relatedly, your engagement session often has a tangible effect on your wedding day photos. This is because one of the key benefits of an engagement session is that it grants you the opportunity to spend time with your photographer in front of the camera. (This of course assumes that you follow the recommendation of having the same photographer capturing your engagement session and wedding day). Time together breeds conversation, transparency, and familiarity. You will walk away from the session feeling that you now know the person behind the camera lens. Your photographer will walk away from the session with a deeper understanding of your personalities as well as the angles, lighting, and perspectives that compliment the two of you. Investing time with your photographer in the engagement session will lay the groundwork for a certain comfort level with your photographer and the camera that will be evident in your final wedding photos.

Finally, there are many uses for the images from your engagement session. These images have beautiful and practical uses in wedding save the dates, on your wedding website, and in your wedding day sign-in book. Your EV Photography engagement session also includes digital proofs that our couples use on their social media and personal devices. In the grand scheme of life, engagement is a short and extremely celebratory chapter. We love it when we see our couples genuinely enjoying their engagement session in the moment and then using their images to decorate their living room walls, office desks, and inspiration boards until the BIG day.

Designing Your Engagement Session

Your engagement session is an opportunity to capture the moments that tell your unique story and illustrate the love you share. Your photographer and you will select a session date and time, and you can typically plan to spend an hour or two on location. Engagement sessions are exploratory so be creative, explore, and be confident that we will create something beautiful together. Read on for a few key considerations while designing your session.

No. 1 Location

Make it personal. Select a location that is unique and special to you; somewhere that stirs fond memories or inspires wanderlust. As mentioned above, the location you choose should help lower any stress and increase your confidence. No location is too far, no adventure is too great. Think outside the box and challenge your imagination. Our photographers love fresh, new ideas and are happy to rendezvous off the beaten path to create beautiful memories for you.

Consider…
– Locations that tell a story or have special meaning
– Natural beauty and the timelessness of breathtaking landscapes
– Exotic destination locations

No. 2 Fashion

Fashion can make or break an engagement session for the couple and the final photos. We want the focus of the photos to be on you and your love so we recommend shying away from any busy patterns, unflattering silhouettes, or inauthentic styles that could take away from that. Expressing yourselves with an exquisite and coordinated wardrobe brings an editorial look to your images. When planning your outfits, intentionally pair your engagement session location with outfits that have a similar look and feel. This will help keep the focus of the images on the subjects (you!) and result in a more cohesive and elevated look. We find that two or three outfits typically work best and your outfits are entirely your choice. Searching for outfit inspiration? You can explore our Pinterest for examples of outfits paired with locations, outfit ideas by desired formality, and styling ideas for every season in Chicago.

Consider…
– Two or three coordinated looks
– Defining your style and dressing accordingly – for example: refined casual, classic chic, metropolitan dressy, timeless formal
– Incorporating accessories to elevate and personalize your ensemble

No. 3 Props

Whether your passion is sailing, traveling, or your pup, props can enhance the shoot and breathe life and personality into a photograph. We love it when couples incorporate something or someone they are passionate about into the engagement session. This can look like inviting children or pets into the session, highlighting a custom piece of clothing, or partaking in an activity closely related to the engagement shoot location. The more authentic the prop feels to the two of you and your story the better.

Consider…
– Location appropriate props
– Boats, cars, or animals
– Bespoke props

Congratulations again on your engagement! We can’t wait to see how the trust and confidence gained from an engagement session translates into beautiful images. Our team at EV Photography strongly believes that unique artwork can only be created when a relationship is formed between the couple and their photographer. Together we get to create photos that are not only beautiful, but meaningful and timeless. Help us get to know you by visiting https://evphotographychicago.com