Getting married? Hiring a professional photographer? Always, always include engagement photography. Always. Whenever I meet with clients for the first time, I try to stress the importance of having an engagement session with their wedding photographer – regardless if it’s me they end up hiring. You may not need save-the-dates, you may not need or want to have engagement photos on display at your wedding, but what I really think you need is an opportunity to work with your wedding photographer before your wedding day. In my case, I want to put clients at ease in front of the camera and have a chance to goof off a bit and have a good time together. That way, when the wedding day comes along, and the groom sees me in a tree or rolling around on the floor to get an interesting perspective – he won’t have to worry – it’s just me doing my thing. The more comfortable you are in the presence of your wedding photographer – the better your wedding photos will be.
Meet Katie and Nick. They wanted an urban setting for their engagement shoot, so we headed into downtown Denver to photograph for a bit with plans to wrap at dusk under the lights in Larimer Square. We ended up with some amazing scenes. I drove the few blocks from my home in the Denver Highlands (riding my bike with my camera gear makes me crazy nervous) and found THE best parking spot ever – right in the exact spot we had planned to meet – only to realize that I had forgotten my wallet. My car is usually spotless, but I searched for loose change anyways – no luck. I happen to have a resolution set for 2012 to not earn any parking tickets (yes, I usually earn them- a bad habit to break. I can only imagine the amounts of sushi I could enjoy in lieu of paying parking tickets) and I had stayed true to that goal for all 13 days of the year so far. Up walks Katie and Nick – looking adorable and so excited for our session. I was laughing at myself as I explained the scenario, and Nick kindly filled my parking meter to the max. Lifesaver! I sent Nick and Katie a complimentary enlargement from our session in thanks for saving me from a ticket – scroll down to see which photograph they chose, it’s one of my favorites too. (No parking tickets to date as I write this post, by the way.)