Engagement

Many couples choose to have Engagement photos to then use as their wedding invitation card. I think this is a perfect excuse for having such a photo session. Or often they are used as a Thank You card afterwards and one big photo to be displayed at the entrance on their wedding day. (Just so guests can see they have come to the right venue! I have actually photographed at a wedding where there were a couple of guests who came in a bit late and sat down at the wrong ceremony, it wasn’t until the bride marched in they realised they were at the wrong wedding! But they thought it was rude to suddenly stand up and run out so they watch the whole wedding ceremony and then ended up missing the wedding they had actually come to see because it was in a different part of the venue! oooops!) The couple must have been a bit stumped when they were trying to work out who these mysterious guests were when they got the photos back!

Engagement or Pre Wedding photos are fast becoming very popular in the UK. It is an invaluable time to get to know what it feels like to be photographed as a couple and relieves any wedding photography jitters that most of you will have!

The last thing you want to be worried about on your wedding day is how on Earth are you going to cope with a camera in front of you the whole day. Well to be honest, most couples don’t even realise I am there, but I am quietly snapping a way with the help of an extra long lens so you don’t feel like I’m in your face at all. Except for group shots where I spring into a bit more of a forceful mode to make sure they get done as quickly as possible, leaving you more time to have fun with your guests…

Already immensely popular in the Far East are Pre Wedding Shoots where couples don their actual wedding outfits or hired attire and create wedding day looking portraits. Since Chinese weddings are often so busy on their actual wedding day with tons of ceremonies and group shots of every single guest that enters the banquet hall (often into the hundreds) it is no wonder they can’t schedule even a few minutes to have photos taken of just the two of them, that’s why it’s a great idea to take a day or two in a relaxed manner and take the photos before hand. Often tied in with a holiday in somewhere exotic or romantic (I love my job!!) A Pre Wedding Honeymoon! The final edited photos are also displayed on the actual wedding day for their guests to see as they enter the banquet room either in a custom made album, a slide show or on big canvas’.

Photographing the wedding couple before their big day is an invaluable time for the photographer and the couple to get to know each other. It helps me find out which are the best angles to photograph them from and if there are any things that they don’t like about being photographed. It is also a great chance to try out different hair styles and make-up so there are no hic-ups on the actual wedding day. There is nothing worse than having spent the whole morning having your hair done on the day of the wedding only to find that you don’t like how it looked in photographs afterwards. I know from experience, my hair was the biggest (and only) disaster on my wedding day!

There are many reasons for wanting to have an Engagement or Pre Wedding photo shoot and I really love having had a chance to spend some time with the couple I’m going to share one of their most important days of their life with. It really is an honour to be chosen as a wedding photographer and I want my couple to feel as relaxed and comfortable with being photographed as they possibly can, so this gives the perfect opportunity.