Engagement Session Photography Tips

With the sprouting of spring, engagement sessions have been in full swing! I love it because I have the chance to connect with my clients on a personal level before the wedding day and understand what makes their love special.

Over the years shooting engagement sessions has become easier in part of preparing my clients for a successful shoot. Clients sometimes showed up late, or got lost, or had distracting patterns on their clothes. I realized I had to outline how a great shoot came to life, as well as outline a list of tips. You can find a copy of this Engagement Session Preparation Email HERE, but I want to take this idea even further.

This Monday I'll be shooting the engagement session for The Knot Dream Wedding couple in Los Angeles and–after I sent the bride, Samantha, the prep email–she responded by asking if there was a certain location she should choose for their session. This was my response…

The only ‘rules' for choosing an engagement session location are:
1.  You should feel at home.
2.  You should be able to freely express affection and emotion.
3.  You should at full liberty to have FUN.
4.  You should feel beautiful.

At face value, I'm offering tips, but under the surface, I'm telling her much more. If you see through the advice, I'm basically telling her the following: Please be comfortable, affectionate, confident, and free to have fun. I'm setting the foundation for her to show up and give me what I need…and sometimes the greatest thing we can give our clients is permission.

If you'd like to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the engagement session unfolds, I'll be broadcasting portions of the shoot live on the Periscope app (if you're an iPhone user, you can find it in the app store), so you can find me @JasmineStar. We'll also have a camera crew detailing the entire shoot so we can take an in-depth look at how to shoot an engagement session as part of my creativeLIVE photography course coming up in May.

I hope to have you join me for this adventure and see if the time I sent in preparation pays off! 😉