One main question that I get is what do we wear for the engagement session.  I touched on this briefly yesterday in the all about engagement session post.  In a nut shell, wear whatever will make you comfortable and feeling amazing.

Make sure you are able to move around, sit, jump, stand, dance and twirl in the outfit without to much fuss.

Make sure it all fits well and that you will not be readjusting your outfit every 10 minutes.

Don’t forget accessories! Matching shoes, belts, jewelry, etc.

Those above tips apply to both guys and girls.

Also – have the location picked out before the outfit! It helps if you do not blend in to much with the scenes.  I have done super cute pictures with couples wearing browns/blacks during a fall wood scene and had people look amazing in brightly colored tops in summer vines. I can help you out with the locations and what colors might work the best for what you have picked.  No matter what, I can work with whatever you give me!

It is great if you guys match a little bit or at least have the same style of clothing on.  You can wear the same family color between the two of you – but make sure they are different shades/tints of the color.  You in light blue, him in dark blue, etc. If you guys are in the same shade then it looks way to matchy matchy.  It is good to go with bright, happy colors if you do not know where to start.

Insert pinterest for inspiration.   Here are a bunch of super cute outfits that are good for engagement sessions.  All of these are listed with perfectly matching accessories which aren’t needed, but these are good jumping off ideas for you to browse through your closet for ideas.  I tried to go with outfits that have some basic essentials that most people would have in their closet.

Whoever came up with these clothing ideas need to serious help me and my closet!

Here are a couple highlights from the above lightbox

The Green dress!  The reason why I love this is because it is the perfect style of dress for running around in a photo shoot.  It doesn’t look like it would need to be adjusted to much and depending on what coverup you put on it – it can be casual or dressy.

Make sure you bring some comfy walking shoes if you plan on wearing heels!

Simple and cute.  Working with layers is always a great idea – it gives us tons of options without fully changing outfits

I want to own this dress and belt.

 I am on the fence about it though for a photo session. It is super cute, but I could see a lot of time spent adjusting.  This would be good with maybe an extra jacket added to it so that if something does happen to slip on one side, it isn’t noticeable . Windy day might be bad with this dress.

Don’t be scared of wearing shorts and a cute top – simple is always best.  We want your clothes to accent you, look cute, but not take over the picture

Cute, simple, clean. Love the concept.  I might have a cute sweat/jacket instead of the sweatshirt style – but this kind of has a ” I’m about to go to the beach” feel to it that I enjoy and if it fits your personality then rock it.

Hopefully that gives you girls some ideas! I had every intention of doing guy style in this post as well… but I really can’t find any great online pictures for guys!  Most of the guys I have worked with have had great style – head over to the engagement site to check out what my past girls and guys have worn for more ideas!

Engagement sessions!

I always get tons of questions about engagement sessions every wedding season.  I love working with my couples for their sessions – we always have a blast.  All of my couples that I work with during the year receive a complimentary engagement session in their wedding package.  I see this session as a must for all my couples.  The session lets me get to know both of you guys on a more personal level, see how you guys react in front of the camera, and you see how I work! Yay!

I recieve a lot of the same questions from my couples on the engagement session.  Some of these questions are:

What should we wear?

Where should we go?

Can we go to multiple locations?

Can we bring our dog/cat/rabbit/random other animal inserted here?

Do we get the images on a disc?

What time should we start?

What day can we do the session?

Most of these questions are covered during the wedding consultation that I have with each and every client when we talk about their wedding and photography needs. Most of these questions are also answered in the flyer that I give my couples with their welcome packet during the meeting.  My out of town/state couples receive this information through emails and of course everyone can always call me with these questions or similar questions before their engagement session.

I developed a great resource to help with the engagement session process.

http://engagement.pipersphotography.com/

At the above link you will find a wealth of information about locations for engagement sessions. That is usually the number one question I get is locations.

Here are my answers to the questions above:

 What should we wear?

I have a small guideline flyer that I give to my couples.  Mainly it says to wear what makes you feel good about yourself – aka when you look in the mirror you know you are lookin’ freakin’ amazing.  Those will be the best outfits for the session.  When you are 100% comfortable and feel amazing about yourself in the outfit that will show off in the photographs.  It is best if you are not messing to much with your outfit ( adjusting a low cut shirt, worrying about a short skirt flying up in the breeze, tripping on shoes, etc).

Always bring 2 outfits – I always say one dressy, one casual. If you are more dressy then casual then bring 2 of those and vice versa.  Whatever works for you!  Make sure you can sit, jump, lift your legs, etc in these outfits.  It is best to try them on a couple days before and make sure you are comfortable sitting in the outfits as well as standing.  Several of my couples are sitting, standing, walking, running, jumping during their sessions.  This does not mean that we are going to do all of these activities in your session, but it is good to not be limited due to clothes restrictions.

I will do a follow up post on outfits an clothes for an engagement session later this week.

Where should we go?

I always say if there is a location that is meaningful to you two, lets go there!  Favorite park, first place you met, first date, first place where you said I Love You, Fav coffee shop, etc.  If you can not come up with any locations that work then go to http://engagement.pipersphotography.com for tons of information on all the locations thatI have been to.  I love trying new locations and that is how I have found several of these locations. I am always open to new ideas!   Let me know if you like more rural or urban spaces, what you guys like to do in your free time together, your favorite activities.  All of these answers help me to give you some good ideas for your engagement session.

Can we go to multiple locations?

Yes, We can go to multiple locations for your engagement session.  I suggest keeping the driving time between these locations to a max of 5-10 minutes.  Normal engagement sessions last about 1.5 hours and by keeping the driving time down to a minimum then we are not spending all the time driving to the other location.  Several locations are big enough that there are tons of options to use for backgrounds and to interact with. Let me know what you are thinking for locations and multiple locations and I can help advice you on what would work the best.

Can we bring our dog/cat/rabbit/random other animal inserted here?

Please do!  Any animal that can not be put on a leash I say lets try to do those animals in a controlled environment.  Animals that can have leashed on them are more then welcome to come as long as the place we are going to allows animals. Make sure a babysitter comes along to take the animal when we are finished working with them.

What time should we start? 

2 hours before sunset is the best time to start. If we are unable to do that time, then I always say early morning is good especially in the summer.  Winter engagement sessions we can usually do any time as the sun is usually under cloud.

I hope that helps!

Yay for new blog series! In my feeble attempt to blog more I have decided I need a series – Something that will start the week of with a bang and put me in the mindset to blog all week, or at least try… keyword: try.

Who isn’t obsessed with Pinterest? I find people either love it or hate it. I was on it for awhile and didn’t really do a whole lot with it.  I always just bookmark a page that I like and maybe in a couple months I might go back to it. I might take a screen capture if it is important information.  Those screen captures end up in a folder labeled ” Random ” on my desktop.  Guess how often I look into the random folder… I can’t even tell you how big it has gotten or how many items… I don’t want to know… eh, I kind of do.

Just looked.  My “Random” folder is now in the “Everything” Folder. I forgot I had made an Everything folder a month ago. Yikes.

Random folder has 6 GBs of info in it.

Everything folder ha 14GBs…

Terrifying isn’t it?

So, in walks Pinterest.  I can now like or pin all the fun things I find online or just browse other things that cool people have pinned. Yay!

Onto the fun – Enjoy these little tidbits over your Monday morning breakfast!

YES! It finally makes sense!

This cracks me up each time I see it

And this one makes me laugh just as much…

The best part about this one was that I had just finished watching one of the Narnia movies on TV before I found that. YES!

This totally happened last week. Score.

Enjoy your Monday!

Baltimore, Ohio Wedding: Adam and Meghan

Delaware, Ohio Wedding : Anna and Mike

Columbus, Ohio Wedding Amy and Ross

Lewis Center, Ohio Wedding  Brittany and Jason

Columbus, Ohio Wedding Bruce and Helen

Columbus, Ohio Wedding Emily and Brent

Urbana, Ohio Wedding Emily and Kip

Columbus, Ohio Wedding   Julia and Ryan

McConnelsville, Ohio Wedding Katie and Brad

Celina, Ohio Wedding     Kelsey and Tom

Radnor, Ohio Wedding    Kevin and Samantha

Athens, Ohio Wedding   Lauren and Mike

Columbus, Ohio Wedding    Tracey and Adam

I hope you enjoyed the  Part One!   Check back soon for Part Two to see all the other gorgeous weddings I was able to photograph in 2011.