Pre-wedding engagement shoots

Well the last week has been primarily made up of portrait and engagement sessions. I’m going to tell you about the engagement sessions as this is something I now include with most of my wedding photography packages.

Pre-wedding engagement shoots are great for both the engaged couple and for myself as well as being a lot of fun! I had five this past week with couples who are getting married later in the year. I’ve included a couple of images from the last one with Christine and Gary at Melville Castle on Saturday morning. Christine and Gary are getting married at Melville Castle in December so the engagement session gives them a taster of their wedding photography whetting their appetites for the forthcoming big day. It’s always nice to do the shoot at the wedding venue although not absolutely necessary. Three of this weeks sessions were at the couple’s wedding venue with the other two being at selected locations around Edinburgh which I use quite often and are a closely guarded secret, lol! It’s quite funny when on occasions I get other wedding photographer’s in Edinburgh asking me for advice on good locations. I usually give them a copy of the guidebook “In & Around Edinburgh” which I did the photography for as well as some writing, and ask them if they want me to sign it, lol.

The actual session itself is going to be very similar to the bride and groom set I will do on the wedding day. But being an engagement shoot we can afford to be a little more laidback and also experiment with a few things too. I usually take anywhere between twenty to forty five minutes, depending on the couple, the location and the mood, which is fairly close to what the wedding timing will be. Of course, with an engagement shoot there is going to be very little reportage photography, so virtually everything will be posed and set up. However, this enables me to give the couple some coaching and posing tips as we go through the session which builds their confidence for the big day.

We usually end up with around 40-50 photographs from a 45 minute session. And, just as on a wedding day, I’ll take a good mix of stylish, contemporary images as well as some nice relaxed, informal ones. We’ll try out a few classic wedding poses and we’ll also throw in some experimental ones too.

On Saturday at Melville Castle I’d arranged to start at 10.30 in the morning which meant we pretty much had the castle to ourselves. It was damp and rainy which was great as it created beautiful, soft, flattering light which is perfect for portraiture. I started off in the castle’s lobby and set Gary and Christine up in a typical, traditional wedding pose talking them through some relaxation techniques which help them to relax in front of the camera lens. We did two or three minutes on standing poses and then a couple of minutes on sitting. And then we went for a wander around some of the nooks and crannies that I know so well. We finished off at the main castle entrance. I wanted some outdoor shots, particularly around the main entrance, as the north facing side of the castle is always in the shade and the light is nice and soft.

Several of my couples mentioned that they didn’t actually have a really nice, professional photograph of themselves. So its nice to use the pre-wedding session to produce something special which can be enlarged and mounted and hung somewhere nice in their home. It also gives the opportunity for family to obtain a really nice pre-wedding photograph, too, or indeed a set of photographs. I put all the images into a private online gallery for the couples and they can then send the link through to their family and friends who can then place any orders online simply and easily.

I’ve got a few more engagement sessions I’m looking forward to coming up throughout this month at various venue’s in Edinburgh and also Newcastle - yes, some wedding photographers in Scotland do venture down into England, lol! Again most of them are with couples who are getting married this summer. I always think February being Valentine’s month is an ideal time for having them, too. Anyway, I’ll no doubt tell you more about them in due course and post a few more pics.