Engagement Pictures

As you already know from reading this blog, my fiancé and I are getting married in April this year. All our planning had gone so well until a few weeks ago when we went for a pre-wedding photo shoot at our venue where we learnt a few very valuable lessons. I had thoughts of the engagement pictures being somewhat pointless and had images of us popping out from behind a tree, however the reality is very different and I would advise everybody to have a pre-wedding shoot.

So the first lesson is that when you’re booking your wedding photographers rather spend a little more than you expected and get someone who is recommended by other photographers. Invest time researching and speaking to any and every photographer you can. The second lesson is to make sure you get your pre-wedding shoot in as early as possible so you don’t get left out of pocket!

Looking back, the website should have set the alarm bells off, but we chose to stick with them. The portfolio that we were shown us at our first meet, along with the confidence, etc left us feeling comfort that they would be capable of meeting our expectations from a photographer.

That comfort was destroyed last week when we received our pre-wedding photos and they were disappointing. We received 100 or so images and barely any of the images are actually usable and they have limited poses.

Fortunately for us one of the photographers, Hannah May (http://www.hannah-may.co.uk), who we initially wanted to go contract with but couldn’t afford at the time has availability on the day and we have managed to switch to her. Special thanks go to Hannah May for her support (and smiley faces) over the past few days.

So to summarize:

1.     Research your photographer. Look at their pictures online, on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. You’ll get a very good idea on their tastes, preferences and style from doing this, which will tell you whether or not they are the right choice for you.

2.     Spend as much as you can afford on a photographer… it’s a big day and you wont have the opportunity to do it over.

3.     Photographers portfolio’s are important but remember to have that all important pre-wedding shoot because anyone can get the odd brilliant photograph worthy of a portfolio but getting an album of 80 or 90 brilliant photos from the pre-wedding shoot will remind you why you’re spending good money on a good photographer.

This was written by the husband to be- quite impressed