When I suggest an engagement session, the first reaction is almost always the same: is this actually useful, or is it just a polished way of selling one more service?
The answer comes down to something I’ve noticed for years: couples who did a session before the wedding are visibly more relaxed in the photos on the day. It’s not an impression. You can see it in the images.
What’s really at stake
On your wedding day, you’ll have a hundred things on your mind and a photographer moving around you for ten hours. If it’s the first time in your life someone has photographed you seriously, part of your attention goes there.
If you’ve already spent an hour and a half with me three months earlier, you know how I work, how far away I stand, and that I won’t ask you for impossible poses. That attention becomes available for your day instead.
The practical benefit
An engagement session also produces images you actually need: the save-the-date, the wedding website, the announcement to family, the guest book. Recent, well-framed images of the two of you that you recognise, rather than a cropped photo from a friend’s wedding.
When to schedule it
Three to six months before. Early enough for save-the-dates to go out in time, late enough that you already have the ring and the mindset that comes with it.
Two outfits, two locations
I always recommend a contrast: one casual location and outfit, then one dressier location and outfit. The gallery becomes much richer, and you end up with both save-the-date images and images worth framing.
What it isn’t
It’s not a miniature wedding session. No white dress, no staging, no timing pressure. It’s an hour and a half where you’re simply engaged, a state that doesn’t last and that almost nobody thinks to photograph.
Planning your wedding and weighing whether a couple session beforehand makes sense? I set out how it works on the session page.
See also: what a couple photoshoot costs in Paris · the pre- and post-wedding session in Paris
