Should you have an engagement session? 

Well… if your package comes with one, or you can afford to get one – then YES!!!!  You should definitely have an engagement session.  Not to say that they are an absolute necessity… in all honesty, your wedding will still go on even if you don’t have one.  I actually never had an engagement session (although I wish I would have).  My husband is not a fan of pictures … I was lucky he even agreed to a professional photographer on our wedding day!!! (He wanted to just give people those cheap little table top disposable cameras!!! Don’t even get me started about those!!!!)  So since it took me long enough to persuade him to agree to have a photographer on our wedding day… I decided to not push the engagement session too much.  So… no engagement session for me. 

Why do I love engagement sessions?  Well… think about it… you’re going to be followed around all day long by your photographer… they will become your shadow for the day.  Would you rather that day to be awkward having this ‘stranger’ follow you around in your most intimate moments?  Or would you like to maybe meet them ahead of time so that you’re more comfortable with them?  It’s like if you needed to find a date for a huge family reunion … would you take a complete stranger? Or would you rather take a friend?  Of course, your photographer is not your date… but your photographer is going to be photographing some very intimate moments between you and your future husband… so of course you want to be as comfortable with them as possible.  During an engagement session you can take that time to get to know them… get to know their personality… get to know their style… and, best of all, get some cute pictures out of it! 

For the photographer… it’s great because they get to know YOU.  I love getting to know my clients, and seeing just how shy or outgoing they might be.  By the end of the engagement session I can make a mental note that a couple is really outgoing, or that they are really shy.  This little one-hour session will get me prepared for the day of the wedding.  I can also be prepared for when someone just can’t seem to keep their eyes open in a picture.  Yes … it’s perfectly normal and common –and it’s great to know ahead of time.  I can make sure to make them aware that they do tend to close their eyes – so that we can figure out if there is a solution (maybe not using flash, if that’s the reason).  Sometimes even knowing that you do tend to close your eyes a lot does enough to keep you conscious of it and you tend to do it less!

So what will happen if you can’t do an engagement session? 

You’ll be totally fine!

I have done many weddings where I’ve never met the couple until the day of the wedding (even a few where all the contracts/deposits were done on-line and through mail) – and they’ve all been successful and came out beautifully.  I do have to admit that, at first, most of those couples are definitely more shy around me and it does take a while to get them to open up and relax a little bit (more so than couples that do have an engagement session).  This is only a problem when there is a very limited amount of time for formals… when every minute counts.  If it takes 10 minutes to get the couple to smile … then it can be a little stressful.  But, luckily, I’ve never had such extreme situation yet.  I like to think that my easy-going personality is contagious… and most of my clients do tell me that I helped calm them down even when they wanted to scream.

Engagement Session at Malibu