INTRODUCTION

All right ladies and gents, obviously, you want to look natural and feel confident on your wedding day. But, aside from professional models, I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys being in front of a camera all day long and having the biggest moments of your life documented.

As if getting married and planning a wedding day isn’t stressful enough, now we’re going to be following you around every step of the day, capturing it all.

So, how can you look and feel natural and confident in those wedding photos? Well, we are big believers in knowledge equals power.

The more you know about posing in front of the camera, along with feeling comfortable with the person behind the camera, is going to go a long way in making you feel comfortable and confident, ensuring the absolute best wedding photography for you.

In this final part, we’re going to educate you on what to do with 3 parts of your body. This will help you to know what to do with your eyes, your hands, and your face, so that you look and feel like the beautiful couple that you are on your wedding day.

We will address wedding poses for the bride first, and some pointers for the groom too. We’re going to make this a quick read, so take a few minutes and soak it all in!

Let’s get started!

POSING YOUR EYES

There’s a time and place for looking directly at the camera, but some of the best photos are when the camera is being ignored completely. Here’s some points to keep in mind:

- If you’re facing your groom, and I ask you to go forehead or nose to nose, you want either your eyes or your grooms eyes closed. If both eyes are open you run the risk of it looking like you’re having a stare down in your own wedding photo!

- If your chin is tilted down, you’ll want your eyes cast down, or closed as well.

- Let’s say for example, your groom is standing behind you, and he’s wrapped you up in a snuggle across your shoulders, you can do a couple different things with your eyes, you can:

1. Tilt your chin up rotate to face him, and look at him

2. Face your photographer, look in the camera and smile or “smize”

3. Or you can look down and out, so you can look to the left or right, tilt your chin down slightly and keep your eyes gazing down as well.

- If you’re kissing, keep your eyes closed.

POSING YOUR HANDS

No free hands! Always be touching! And if the pose/prompt allows for it, touch skin.

Here’s some points to keep in mind:

• If it doesn’t feel comfortable, there’s a pretty good chance it won’t look good in the final photograph, so I often ask if it feels natural before taking the photo.

• Unless you’re pregnant, please refrain from placing hands on/around the stomach. Being completely wrapped up in a big bear hug is okay, but otherwise keep hands on waist, chest, neck, face or around shoulders.

• Relaxed fingers and a light touch when cupping your partner's face, chin or neck looks a lot better than tense fingers or a very firm grip. And NO spider hands! Our hands are as big as our faces, but we look better if we make them look smaller and don't call attention to them. (unless you want to look like a monkey).

• Whenever possible, show off that ring!!

• Hands in hair (gently) produces super romantic, and sometimes intense (in a good way) pictures!

• Bonus Tip! If your fiancé is wearing a jacket, lightly pulling on his jacket is an awesome idea for your photos! You can make it fun and playful or romantic and sexy.

POSING YOUR FACE

How you pose your face can make a big difference on how you look in your photos!It will definitely feel awkward at first, but take 3 minutes a day to practice in front of a mirror and you’ll feel WAY more comfortable and confident by the time you’re in front of the camera.

Here’s some points to keep in mind:

• Keep your chin neutral, slightly up or slightly down. Too far up, or too far down can make you look creepy.

• Leaning slightly toward the camera (from the waist) will give you a better neckline (turtle neck) pulling your head away from the camera will give you a double-chin and make your body look bigger.

• Angling your face slightly to the right or slightly to the left tends to be more flattering than a straight on photo.

• These combinations of angling your chin up or down and your face to one side or the other means you have an endless number of variations for when you pose!

• Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and open your teeth slightly to accentuate your jawline. Not just the tip of your tongue, but the back of your tongue too. It feels weird, but practice this and trust me, it makes a difference!

CONCLUSION

Thank you SO much for taking the time to read this 3-part engagement session guide! I hope you loved reading it as much as I loved making it for you!!

We are your local engagement and wedding photography experts in Northern Florida and Southern Georgia. (and beyond)

If you’re a newly engaged couple (and now that we’ve armed you with how to select the perfect time and place for your engagement photos), then we’d love to chat with you!

We can help you establish a perfect wedding timeline and make sure your family shot list is complete, and take all of the chaos and stress out of your wedding-day photography.

How does that sound?

Click here to setup a free phone or in-person consultation online.

INTRODUCTION

The first and, arguably, most important thing to do is to decide on the “vibe” or feel you want for your final photos. A couple of questions to ask yourself are:

- What styles of photography/editing are appealing or attractive to you?

- What is the theme, or inspiration for your wedding?

- Will you be using some of the photos from your engagement session for “Save the Dates”?

- What are the styles of clothing that you feel most comfortable and confident wearing?

SETTING THE SCENE

After you’ve decided on the vibe/feel you want for your photos, it’s time to compile a list of possible locations for your engagement photoshoot session.

A couple of key things to keep in mind are:

- Consider using your venue. This is a great opportunity for your photographer to get familiar with your venue, it’ll match the theme of your wedding perfectly, and will serve as a test run for your actual wedding photos. A win-win-win!

- What about the actual location of your proposal? Sometimes a restaurant will allow you to photograph inside or do a re-enactment.

- Look up local gardens/parks OR use Google Maps to Explore possible urban locations. This one speaks for itself, of course you can drive around different possible locations too, but using google maps will help save you drive time and gas!

- Ask your photographer for recommendations. Chances are, your photographer knows a couple of really great locations that would fit your needs perfectly OR they have a location they’re dying to try out!

Asking for recommendations ensures that your photographer knows and loves the location you ultimately end up shooting at!

CONSIDER THE SUN

This is definitely a step you want to consider with your photographer, you’ll want to figure out where the sun rises, sets AND consider the weather locally.

A couple of key things to keep in mind are:

- Visit the location ahead of time. If your photographer is familiar with the chosen location, then they’ll already know where the best light is and when the best time to start your session will be.

-Typically outdoor photos are best an hour or an hour and a half before sunset as the sun isn't as bright and you won't be as hot or squinty.

- Consider the weather during the time of year you want to schedule your session. Florida summers equals hot, humid, rainy, cloudy (and possibly bug crazy) weather.

Depending on factors like location and weather, a sunrise shoot could be better than a sunset shoot.

 Click here to setup a free phone or in-person consultation online.

INTRODUCTION

Part of what makes a beautiful photo session are the colors that are presented! Think greens and reds during Christmas, or a beautifully colored movie that shows complementary colors such as teal and orange.

Each color has a friend on the other side of the color wheel that brings out the best in both of them.

You really want clothing colors that work well with the environment and adds to the look of the image. You never want loud or distracting colors that compete for attention. 

DECIDING THE LOOK

Everyone has different tastes. What inspires you? What photos have you seen on Pinterest or IG that really grabs your attention? Flowy dresses and cute hats in an open field? Maybe boho is your jam! Perhaps a more regal style shoot in a beautiful indoor venue feels more your style.

Whatever your style is, we want you to dress accordingly. Try making a Pinterest board, or screenshot all the photos that inspire you and look at the outfits.

This is going to give you an idea of what you may want to purchase for your upcoming shoot, or you may even have something similar in your closet. Take a look!

Best to use online photos for inspiration and ideas. Trying to do an 'exact copy' of another photo is next to impossible to do (as you and your surroundings are much different than theirs) and it never looks quite right. So get inspired and come up with your own unique ideas.  

Above all, we want to make sure that whatever outfit you choose, you FEEL gorgeous, confident, and comfortable in it. This will translate to amazing photos!

CHOOSING THE RIGHT COLORS

We talked about the color wheel a bit earlier. Let’s use the principle of complementary colors for your engagement photos. We don’t want to get too confusing or technical, but understanding the basics goes a long way when choosing your outfits.

Bright, overly saturated colors can come across as very harsh in camera.

You always want to choose colors that are easier on the eye. Say you like green and red, think EARTHY Green and BURGUNDY Red. A good rule of thumb is monochromatic colors, pastels, deep tones, and NO neons.

Small Textures and patterns are ok but use them sparingly, so try to refrain from large logos, character tees, and big/bright/bold patterns.

Lay your proposed outfits on the bed and squint your eyes at them and if they seem to blend, with no particular one jumping out, you should be good.

If a bright white shirt looks too bright or the yellow in the dress is too intense, make some adjustments and try again. Once the colors are right, you’re good to go!

PUTTING TOGETHER THE OUTFIT

Having inspiration photos and knowing what you like or don’t like is a huge help when it comes time to start putting your outfits together.

If you’re still a little lost, your photographer can help you build a color scheme around the main color/outfit you want to coordinate everything else with.

Once you think you’ve got your outfits set, you need to look at them side by side. Seeing it all together is going to help tremendously, and bonus if you try it on!

Sending pics to your photographer to get their input is invaluable, too, especially if colors and outfits aren’t your strong suit.

Then you can adjust accordingly if needed! Take a look at some of our previous couples’ sessions in this post for outfit/color palette inspiration on what to wear for your engagement photos!

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We've all heard it, "bundling will save you money!" You can get multiple products or services for less by bundling them together.

In the wedding industry this practice has been around for years and is normally called 'a package'. The idea is if you spend more, you ultimately get a bigger discount on 'the package'.

In some cases photographers would buy closeout or discontinued and discounted products (albums, frames, etc.) and then put them in 'the package' to offer a better 'deal' or more 'stuff' for a lower price than the items would normally cost.

The problem with some of these packages or bundles is that you end up buying things you really don't want or need (even at the discounted price). Nothing worse than being forced to take a 16x20 gold frame when it just isn't your style.

I know some venues will include the locations "standard photographer" in the package, the problem is not everyone is going to like the standard photography and some brides will want photography that is different than what all the other weddings at that location got.

Nothing worse than when you ask to remove the 'venue photographer' from the venues package (because you have your own better one) only to be told the price can't be reduced even if you don't use their service. 

Over the years we have avoided these issues by allowing each couple to customize exactly what they want while still giving them the most competitive price.

When you 'bundle' with us (and pay in advance) you can typically get up to a 25% discount. We also offer quantity discounts after the event. When you purchase reprints online from us you get the 4th one FREE.

At our most recent bridal show we offered a starter wedding album in our package for a 66% discount -basically at our cost! That's a package incentive worth taking!

Now let's talk about another form of bundling that doesn't always turn out as good as it sounds. Too often a 'jack-of-all-trades' vendor provides cut-rate services at cut-corner pricing that's 'too good to be true' in their packages. It's the 'one-man-band' schtick!

For example: A photographer or DJ throwing in videography. Or a venue providing services outside of their scope of expertise. For this type of bundling to be a success they would need to hire an expert in the field which (if supplying a quality product) really wouldn't amount to much savings.

Although initially it looks like a 'good deal' too often the vendor tries to do it themselves (jack-of-all-trades, master of none - 'one-man-band') OR they will find a less experienced person (their cousin) who is trying to learn the trade and is willing to offer cut-rate services at low-quality prices.

In the end you are paying good money for poor-quality and inadequate services. I really wouldn't want to pay someone any amount of money to practice at my event, but then again, I value quality over quantity. 

I have attended events where the distracted DJ forgot to start the stand-alone video camera at the beginning of the ceremony. Or the photographer's assistant missed critical still shots because they were messing with the video camera.

Nothing worse than your DJ ignoring the malfunctioning photo booth because he has to play the music, or visa-versa. 

The most cost-effective way to get the best bundle is to negotiate it yourself. (that way you can choose your best priorities) Your wedding day is a once-in-a-lifetime event. Only pay for what you want, get the best quality possible that your money can afford and don't waste any money on 'extras' that you really didn't need.

More isn't always better, you won't regret getting the best-quality essentials rather than skimping on the important stuff in exchange for a lot of poor-quality extras.

Instagram photo filters have become all the rage!

Over the past several years we have seen this 'push button' form of editing digital photos bleed over into the professional wedding photography market in Florida.

BEFORE choosing a Jacksonville wedding photographer that forces their photo filter 'style' on you, consider this:

The good news - bad news: if an inexperienced photographer (who doesn't know how to edit photos in PhotoShop) wants a quick and easy way to 'edit' their images and apply a 'style' to them they can now just push a button to get a certain 'look'.

Many software companies are capitalizing on this trend by creating programs (outside of Instagram) to create and sell this 'style' capability.

So many of these 'styles' make permanent changes to the original digital file that are irreversible and destructive. They destroy detail in both the highlights and the dark areas of the image that can never be recovered.

I have had brides bring me their wedding photographs and paid me to remove or restore their images more towards original by removing the applied photo filter 'style' their photographer applied to all their images (which now has gone out-of-style).

My advice to any bride is to get the BEST 'original' photos as possible (including the most details) as you can always add photo effects later.

We provide the best-quality originals AND can provide an additional subset of 'stylized' photos AND give our brides complete artistic release to allow them to edit and manipulate their images however they want.

I cringe as I read many inexperienced photographers' blog about how they arrive at their 'style'. Too often it's a long and complicated process of uneducated decisions that are trying to make-up for improper camera settings and capturing techniques.

I have always said that fads come and go, so in the long run, it's always better to lean towards the proven classics to insure long-term happiness and no regrets.

The number of photo filters available are endless. I am amused by the variation of non-descript names they are given such as: Clarendon, Gingham, Juno, Lark, Mayfair, Sierra, Valencia, Walden, etc.

I have included in this post a handful of photo effects showing the before and after's. I have named these descriptive terms rather than fancy (but meaningless) names.