Engagements are about a promise of a lifetime and the official start of your wedding season. You have seen couples getting photographers to hide and click the perfect moment of when one partner proposes to the other. Well, if you’re not going that far, an engagement session with your wedding photographer should be a no-brainer for you.
It has plenty of benefits as we will find out later, but it also helps you take a moment to capture your love in a non-formal setting. Also, think of it like this: movies look as good as they do because everyone works together on the set. When you’re trying to capture your love and relationship in the best light, it is crucial that you work with your photographer, and get to understand their process.
Now that you’re warmed up about the idea of engagement sessions, let’s look at the 10 best reasons they’re worth every penny. And lastly, if you’re planning on getting engaged soon and haven’t found the right photographer for your wedding yet, be sure to check out Shan Photography. We have experience managing hundreds of weddings and engagement shoots for couples across the US. So, with our team, you’ll be sure to look and feel like movie stars when you’re getting clicked.
10 Exciting Reasons Why Engagement Sessions Are Totally Worth It
When you’re getting a wedding package, there are several photographers who will give you a discounted rate for engagement sessions. If you were to book a couple shoot, it would probably cost a lot more. So, considering you’ll obviously get a photographer for your wedding, fiscally, it makes sense to get the deal when you can get it. Why? Well, here are ten reasons why.
1. Learning Camera Friendliness
You may love taking selfies, and you may have appeared in TikTok videos shot by your friend, but it does take some preparation to face a professional camera. For some people, camera friendliness comes naturally, and if you’re one of them, that’s great, but please consider that your partner may not have the same flair as you.
Learning how to smile in front of the camera, how to look in front of a camera, how to stand, how to present, these are all skills that you must learn. And if you’re experienced, you must take the opportunity to improve and help your partner. Having an engagement session ensures that you know your strengths and weaknesses from the get-go. It also enables you to prepare for your wedding and know what to do and not to do on the big day.
2. Learning About How You Look on Camera
Do you know your angles? Do you know which side of your face looks best on camera? Do you know the angle that makes your face look puffy? Most people don’t and shouldn’t know all of this. That’s why you need an engagement session. Seeing yourself clicked professionally is the best way to find out what works and doesn’t work.
If you don’t have this session, there’s a good possibility your wedding pictures will not be perfect. Are you really willing to take that chance? Learning about how you look on camera can help you be better prepared for your wedding day. It also helps your photographer plan their shots according to how you appear when they’re shooting.
3. Having a Trial Run Before Your Wedding
As mentioned previously, engagement sessions are basically a trial run before your wedding. You get the opportunity to see your pictures and decide what works and what doesn’t work. You also get to know your angles and learn how to be relaxed in front of a camera. People often look stiff when the camera is rolling, and that’s not ideal for the effortless look you want for your wedding photos.
This gives you a chance to play actor in your own lifetime movie and learn a few tricks of the trade on how to be your best self for the camera. Also note, you’re not alone in the process. A professional photographer and a team of experts are there to help you give you notes and learn how to present yourself better on camera.
4. Pictures For Your Wedding Invitations
Told you these sessions are worth every penny. You can make beautiful personalised wedding invitations if you go for engagement sessions. These pictures can make designing your save-the-date cards and wedding invitations easier. It’ll also be fun to have professional-grade pictures on these invitations, which automatically improve the appearance and classiness of your wedding invites.
You can ask your photographer to design the cards, or you can take a swing at designing yourself with the pictures you get back. The point is that you get more value with one shoot and get pictures that actually have use for your wedding planning.
5. Pictures For Your Wedding Decorations
In the same line as your wedding invite, the pictures from your engagement sessions can double as wedding decorations. Your venue or decorations vendor can easily incorporate these pictures into the design to make your wedding personalised and look better for the couple. In fact, personalised wedding decorations are quite the trend nowadays.
You can easily get to do it for your wedding at no additional cost if you’re going for the session. Apart from wedding decorations, you can also create guest books and have the pictures be a part of that, which makes the wedding more personalised and meaningful for your guests.
6. Understanding Your Photographer’s Process
Every photographer has a process that they use when working. Even though the photographer generally talks to you about their process in detail at the time of booking, it is a much different thing to see it in action before your wedding day. You will get to see them use their skills and expertise in action, which will help you learn more about the choice that you made.
Sometimes it is possible that you don’t click with your photographer, and their process doesn’t work for you. Isn’t it better to find that out before your big day, when you can’t have any do-overs? This is why it’s crucial to go for engagement sessions.
7. Check How Your Hair & Makeup Look on Camera
This is a very important thing. If you’re getting a professional hair and makeup person, it is crucial that you get a test run before your wedding and what’s better than getting a test-run in front of the camera? After all, the memories of your wedding are memorialized in pictures only.
The person working on your hair and makeup will also get a chance to review their work from your engagement session and ensure anything that can be done better is done better for your wedding day. Going for this one session allows your entire wedding day service providers to be able to help you better in achieving your perfect dream wedding.
8. Creates a Romantic Memory To Help You Unwind
Wedding planning is stressful, and anything you can do to unwind, even for a day, goes a long way. If your spouse is having a rough time keeping up with wedding planning, an engagement session can be a pleasant surprise. Just one day spent with each other, looking your best and relaxing without the stress of talking to vendors, can be a welcome surprise.
It can also help you catch up with your partner amidst all the chaos that is wedding planning. This is one of the best things you can do to make your engagement sessions stand out even more. Make it a day about the two of you, and use it to reconnect and reaffirm your love for one another.
9. Chance To Connect With Your Photography Team
Photographers are people, too, and when you can vibe with someone, it makes working with them easier. If the photographer speaks your language or is able to understand what you want easily, your wedding day gets easier, and the pictures get better.
The best way to connect with your photographer is to work with them. Models often work with the same photographers over time because of how well they both understand and know each other. This can be the same for you when you choose to go for engagement sessions.
Additionally, you may be able to make a friend, too. No reason your vendors and the relationships you make during wedding planning can’t exist beyond your big day.
10. Confidence That Your Wedding Photos Will Look Perfect
This is the best part of going for engagement sessions. You get to see the pictures you had dreamt of in your head become real, before your wedding. The confidence you get when you know what you imagined is going to go the way you want it to makes you look even better.
Wedding planning is stressful, and not worrying about one thing can give you the clear headspace required to take care of anything that comes up on your big day. Overall, the confidence you get doesn’t just help you feel better on your wedding day; it stays with you forever when you know you look amazing every day.
Final Thoughts
Engagement sessions are value for money and provide excellent value worth every penny. The benefits listed above are priceless and can help you make your wedding perfect, just as you imagine it. So, now that you know the value that these sessions provide, make sure you have a great time with your photographer. If you don’t have a photographer yet, be sure to check out Shan Photography. Our team can help you learn the skills required to present yourself comfortably in front of the camera. We also provide wedding cinematography services. So the engagement session you book with us can help us add depth to your wedding film. Interested in learning more? Contact us today!
Check out the latest wedding shoot on our Instagram