Weddingbee PRO

@Diana: let me preface this by saying: I’m a professional photographer and therefor I have a biased opinion. However, I was also a bride.

As a wife, who really doesn’t have any “professional images” of me and my hubby from BEFORE the wedding, I kinda wish we did have them. We have lots of great point & shoot pictures from our various adventures during our courtship phase, but I do kinda wish we had something “nicer” than what our point & shoot cameras allowed with whoever was walking by and willing to hold the camera for us! I have gained weight since the wedding and I definitely don’t look the way I did when I was engaged. I think that’s probably the biggest reason I wish I had them, to be honest. Some people don’t ever change after getting married, but I did and part of me longs to have some really nice causal images of us during our “everything is rainbows and unicorns” phase. Not that married life isn’t great!! Woo Hoo! But your relationship becomes more about commitment and responsibility versus swooning and lovey dovey make-out sessions.

Because of my personal feelings about this, I encourage my couples to do an engagement session with me before the wedding at no additional charge and I know that quite a few other photographers feel similarly (but not all- so please ask your photog before assuming it’s the case!) Not just because I want to give them what I didn’t have, but because I really do find a value in getting to know couples and their unique chemistry together before the wedding day. It also helps me get a sense of who they are, how they photograph together, what their best angles are, etc. On top of that, it gives the couple an opportunity to see how they look through my eyes so that we can address any self-confidence or altered-self-perception issues they might have- especially if they haven’t been photographed in a while.

From a bride’s perspective, doing an engagement session with your photographer before the wedding day helps you get a sample of how your photographer works and what their process is from start to finish. You’ll get a sense of what they’re like behind the camera as well as how comfortable you are with them taking photos of you. Granted, an engagement session is a very different situation from a wedding day- because there’s generally a lot more one-on-one time and a bit more direction involved, but I know for a fact that the brides who do an engagement session with me before their wedding feel 200% more confident and trusting of me on their wedding day.