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Engagement

July 15, 2020

5 Things to Know Before Your Engagement Session

couple in love posing in downtown greenville, sc

UPDATED: December 15, 2021

We decided to go through some of our older posts and make sure they were all up to date. Since we originally posted this over a year ago, we’ve photographed a LOT of engagement sessions and we’ve also picked up a few more tips. 

An engagement session is one of the first times we meet most of our couples face to face. While that can FEEL like a lot of pressure, trust us, it’s not! We see engagement sessions as a fun time for us to get to know you! But also for you and your fiancé to get to know us, and for you to practice having your photos taken so that you’re pros by the time your wedding rolls around!

We LOVE engagement sessions so much! And you should too! Firstly, it’s un-rushed time for you and your fiance to laugh, snuggle, kiss, and smile. It’s all about you two. While you may think of traditional portrait sessions as stiff, or only smiling directly into the camera, that’s not our style.

We will make you laugh, learn about you and your favorite things, and prompt you during the in between moments so that we are able to capture the two of you candidly. Our goal is to make you feel super comfortable and at ease so that on the wedding day, portraits are a breeze!

Here are our top 5 things we think you should know going into your engagement session:

1. The first 15 minutes is awkward, for EVERY couple.

No matter who you are, you’ll probably be a little nervous or feel a little awkward in the first 15 minutes of our time shooting together. You don’t get in front of a camera every day, so it’s normal to feel this way.

It never fails. Even Mitchel and I feel this way when we have our own photos taken professionally. We actually have our photos taken by another photographer at least once a year so we can remember how our clients feel!

After we begin coaching you during your session and finding the poses that flatter you, I promise you’ll start to feel more comfortable. Within 15-20 minutes, your nerves will have faded and you’ll feel like a natural, I guarantee it.

2. I’ll explain everything and you don’t need to know anything.

In no way, shape, or form, do we expect you to know what you’re doing when you arrive at your session. Leave the coaching up to us! Since you likely have never been professionally photographed with your significant other, we are going to teach you everything you need to know.

From where to put your hands, to fluffing the curls that you worked so hard on, to how to stand so that you appear taller, we got you! We actually think that couples who have no clue what they are doing are more teachable, which makes it easier for us to work with.

Don’t feel like you need to do any homework or research beforehand. Your only job is to show up on the day of the session and have fun.

3. I’ll teach you our core poses and we may even get to advanced posing

We will explain our posing system as we go. We make it really simple by starting with 4 core poses. You obviously aren’t required to memorize these poses, but our couples are so great, that lots of times they actually DO! Which is so helpful when all of those come flooding back to you on your wedding day.

We will pose you, and we will of course make adjustments as we go! If you nail the 4 core poses, we may even switch things up and begin entering into more advanced posing. No pressure there though! 99% of our couples are ready for advanced posing before we know it!

Also feel free to give us posing ideas or anything you want to avoid! You deserve to receive the exact pictures you want! If you have something in mind, let us know and we can make it work.

4. I’ll get to know (and more importantly, flatter) your insecurities

We get it. Everyone has a thing. Maybe you have a favorite side of your face, or you hate the way you sometimes forget to stand up straight, or can’t stand it when you have a hair out of place. Don’t worry.

We will ask you beforehand what you’d like us to look out for, and we will do our due diligence to make sure we photograph you in the most flattering way so that you LOVE your images for years to come!

Regardless of what you’re self-conscious of or insecure about, feel comfortable telling us! We want to do everything we can to make you feel as amazing as possible about your photo session. There are poses for everybody and type! We will find something that flatters you!

Clemson sc engagement photos

5. Most importantly, you absolutely can’t mess it up!

Like we said, engagement sessions are NO pressure at all. I’ll even show you some of the images on the back of my camera throughout the session, so if you hate something, we can try again! Or if you feel uncomfortable in a certain pose, we will scrap it!

An engagement session is a fun time that’s also great practice for the wedding day, but SO much less stress than the actual big day!

BONUS TIP: It’s going to be fun!

We do everything we can to make sure you and your boo thing have a GREAT time doing your engagement session. We know that it can be a little stressful to be in front of a camera, but we do everything we can to make sure it’s a wonderful time for us and you two!

Why do we care so much about you having fun? Because it shows on camera!

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