Unveiling the Ultimate Love Rehearsal

Hey fabulous couples! I am spilling the beans on transforming your engagement session into the ultimate practice round for your upcoming wedding day. Think of it as a rehearsal for love, complete with camera confidence, pose parties, and a touch of makeup magic!

1. Get Comfortable in Front of the Camera

One of the biggest reasons I recommend an engagement session is pretty simple: it gives you a practice run before the wedding day.

And no, I don’t expect you to show up already knowing what to do with your hands.

Most couples aren’t used to having a camera pointed at them for an hour. It can feel a little weird at first, and that’s completely normal. An engagement session gives you a chance to get past that initial okay…what do we do now? feeling without the pressure of a wedding-day timeline.

You get comfortable with me, you get comfortable with the camera, and you realize pretty quickly that I’m going to tell you what to do.

By the time the wedding comes around, we’ve already done this once. You know what to expect, and that’s one less thing to think about on an already very full day.

2. Figure Out What Feels Like You

I don’t expect you to be professional models. Actually, I’d rather you weren’t.

Your engagement session gives us a chance to figure out what feels natural for the two of you.

We’ll walk. We’ll move. You’ll cuddle up. I’ll probably make you do something that sounds slightly ridiculous but somehow looks great in photos. And somewhere along the way, you’ll stop thinking quite so much about the camera.

That’s the good stuff.

It also gives me a chance to learn how the two of you naturally interact. Every couple is different, and the more I know about you before the wedding, the better I can photograph you when the day actually arrives.

3. We Get to Know Each Other

This might be one of my favorite reasons to do an engagement session.

Your photographer is going to be around you for a lot of your wedding day. Probably more than you realize when you’re booking everyone.

So it helps tremendously if I’m not basically a stranger showing up with a camera on one of the biggest days of your life.

An engagement session gives us time to hang out without a timeline breathing down our necks. You get to see how I work, how I direct you, and what I mean when I give you certain prompts.

And I get to know you two.

I learn who is more comfortable in front of the camera, what makes you laugh, how you naturally stand together, and what brings out those little moments that actually look and feel like you.

Then when your wedding day arrives, we’re not starting from scratch.

4. Test Out Your Outfits

Engagement photos are also a great excuse to play around with what photographs well.

Bring a couple of outfits if you’d like. Dress one up and keep the other more casual. Try colors you’re considering incorporating into your wedding or simply choose something that feels completely different from your wedding-day look.

This is also a good time to notice how certain colors, fabrics, or fits look on camera.

My biggest advice here, though? Don’t get so caught up in coordinating perfectly that you stop looking like yourselves.

You don’t need matching outfits.

You need outfits that look good together and, more importantly, make you feel good when you’re wearing them.

5. Get Used to a Little PDA

Here’s something nobody really tells you about wedding photography:

I’m going to ask you to love on each other. A lot.

You’re going to hold hands, cuddle, hug, kiss, get close, and occasionally do all of that while I’m standing a few feet away with a camera.

At first, that can feel a little awkward.

An engagement session gets that awkwardness out of the way.

Pretty soon you stop thinking, Candace is taking a picture of us kissing, and start paying attention to the person you’re actually kissing.

That’s exactly where I want you.

Because the less you’re thinking about me and my camera, the more your photos start looking like the two of you instead of two people trying very hard to have their picture taken.

6. Give Your Hair and Makeup a Test Run

If you’re planning professional hair and makeup for your wedding, your engagement session can be a great time to schedule your trial.

You get to see how everything looks in photographs, which can be very different from how it looks standing in front of your bathroom mirror.

Maybe you realize you want a little more makeup than you normally wear. Maybe you love everything exactly as it is. Or maybe you look through the photos and decide you’d rather change something before the wedding day.

That’s the whole point of a trial.

It’s much better to figure those things out during your engagement session than while you’re sitting in the makeup chair on your wedding morning.

7. Tell Me What You Loved

Once you get your engagement photos back, pay attention to the ones you’re immediately drawn to.

Maybe you love the photos where you’re both laughing but aren’t crazy about the more serious ones. Maybe you love close-up photos or realize you really prefer the ones with more movement.

Tell me.

I’m not offended if you have preferences. I actually want to know them.

Your engagement gallery gives us something tangible to talk about before the wedding. I can see what you love, what feels most like you, and what you might want more or less of when the wedding day comes around.

That’s another reason I love engagement sessions so much.

We’re not just creating pretty photos for your save-the-dates. We’re figuring each other out so that when your wedding day arrives, you can stop worrying about the camera and actually enjoy what’s happening in front of it.