Pre-wedding photoshoot

Engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy in Cheshire: credit www.arj-photo.co.uk

Adam from ARJ Pho­tog­ra­phy is a great pro­po­nent of pre-wedding or engage­ment shoots, as am I. I asked him to write a guest blog post on engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy and he jumped at the chance!

Are you a bride– or groom-to-be, wor­ried you’re not pho­to­genic or per­haps feel­ing a lit­tle cam­era shy? You’re cer­tainly not the first to be ner­vous about hav­ing your pho­to­graph taken, and if your wed­ding is fast approach­ing it’s a good idea to try and over­come these wor­ries. That’s where a pre-wedding photo ses­sion with your pho­tog­ra­pher comes in. Trust me — you’ll be so glad you did.

Engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy in Cheshire: credit www.arj-photo.co.uk

Over to Adam…

Why is engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy so important?

Well lots of rea­sons, but there are three really big ones…

Firstly, you get to see your wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher at work before the big day.  This in itself will increase your con­fi­dence in them and rein­force your deci­sion to choose them which, at this point, has been made from other people’s wed­ding pho­tos, per­son­al­ity and a big old chunk of instinct.

My style is fun, relaxed and rel­a­tively infor­mal and it’s a great way to show that I’m not just going to bark orders and shout SMILE.

Engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy in Cheshire: credit www.arj-photo.co.uk

It also lets your pho­tog­ra­pher see how you are with each other, how you react to the cam­era, which poses you enjoy and work for you as a cou­ple and indi­vid­u­als.  This com­bines to help your pho­tog­ra­pher know how to make you look your absolute best on your wed­ding photos.

Most of all, you’ll see your engage­ment pho­tos and think ‘wow — we look A-MAZ-ING’.  More con­fi­dence again that you’ve got a really good pho­tog­ra­pher, and one less thing to worry about in the run up to your wed­ding day.  And let’s face it, any­thing you can knock off the ‘worry list’ is more than wel­come, right?!

Engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy in Cheshire: credit www.arj-photo.co.uk

I do all my engage­ment ses­sions as on-location lifestyle shoots.  I sug­gest loca­tions but always try to match it to the couple’s own style and some know exactly where they want it.

Some pho­tog­ra­phers do engage­ment pho­tos at their stu­dio, but I think lifestyle shoots are more nat­ural and more like how it’ll be on the wed­ding day when we do the bride and groom portraits.

Engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy in Cheshire: credit www.arj-photo.co.uk

All my cou­ples get their favourite photo pre­sented in a big mount for their guests to sign around on the wed­ding day.  Some also have guest books, albums, and DVD slideshows made.  If we do it early enough, we can even plan in pho­tos to be used as table num­bers, for save the date cards and invi­ta­tions or just as part of the all-important lit­tle details that help make up a wed­ding day.

The added bonus of all this for me on the wed­ding day is — instead of arriv­ing at the brides home and just being intro­duced as ‘the pho­tog­ra­pher’ I’m much more likely to be referred to as ‘Adam’!  I like that.

And the phrase I most often hear at the end of an engage­ment shoot? “Wow, that was so much fun, I can’t WAIT to see them!”.  Suc­cess.

Engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy in Cheshire: credit ARJ Photography

Engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy in Cheshire: credit ARJ Photography

Thanks to Adam from ARJ Pho­tog­ra­phy for this fan­tas­tic advice on engage­ment pho­tog­ra­phy. If you’re in Man­ches­ter, Cheshire or nearby do check out his wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy web­site and the ARJ Pho­tog­ra­phy blog for more infor­ma­tion on his services.

See a full engage­ment photo shoot by ARJ Pho­tog­ra­phy on Eng­lish Wed­ding: Liz & Jon’s engage­ment shoot in Delamere Forest.