Engagement Photoshoot Ideas

There's a stretch of days right after a proposal where everything still feels slightly unreal.

You keep catching the ring in the corner of your eye. You've told your parents, you've told the friends who'd never forgive you for finding out second, and somewhere in the middle of all that you find yourself typing engagement photoshoot ideas into your phone at 11pm.

What I want for you is a session that looks like your actual life, in a place you'd go anyway, doing something you'd probably be doing whether or not I was standing there with a camera. Most of my couples photography in Sydney starts from exactly that.

The ideas I come back to most all begin in the same spot, with where you decide to stand.

Start somewhere that already belongs to you

Most engagement photoshoot ideas work better when the place is already yours.

A park you walk through on Sunday mornings. The stretch of coast where you had your first proper conversation. The back verandah of the house you're renting, with the light coming in low across the table.

Somewhere familiar changes how you stand. You lean on the railing the way you always lean on it, your shoulders drop, and I get to photograph 2 people instead of 2 people posing.

I'm based in the Hills District, and as a Hills District photographer I shoot right across Sydney and up into the Blue Mountains, so distance is rarely the deciding factor. The light is.

If the proposal is still ahead of you, a few of my favourite places to propose around Sydney make beautiful session locations a month later, once the nerves have worn off and the place has taken on a second meaning.

Engagement photoshoot ideas that come from your own week

When couples ask me what to do with their hands, the answer is usually something they already do.

Make pasta in your own kitchen with the radio on. Take the dog down to the oval before dinner. Drive out to the lookout you always mean to visit and take a thermos with you.

Movement gives you something to be inside of, which is why a walk, a slow dance in the hallway, or a long conversation on a picnic rug tends to produce the frames couples love most.

I keep a longer list of couple photoshoot ideas if you'd like somewhere to start.

Letting the ring turn up on its own

The ring finds its way into the photographs without anyone staging it.

Hands do a lot of the work in an engagement session anyway. A hand resting flat on his chest, fingers through his hair, a palm against the side of his face while he's laughing at something you said.

A few practical things help. Get it cleaned in the week beforehand, wear it on the day rather than carrying it in a pocket, and keep your nails neat in whatever colour you actually like wearing.

I'll usually take a few close frames early on, so it's done and you can forget about it and just be with each other for the rest of the hour.

A quiet rehearsal for the wedding day

Being photographed is a skill, and almost nobody has practised it.

An engagement session gives you an hour to learn it while nothing much is riding on the result. You find out what your face does, you get used to how I talk while I'm working, and you learn that I'll always tell you where to put your hands if you'd rather be told.

By the wedding morning I'm a familiar voice in a room full of new ones. You've heard my directions before, and your body already knows what they mean.

It's a good moment to trial your hair and makeup too, and to see how a particular colour photographs on you before you choose it for the whole bridal party.

The hour worth booking

I'll usually ask for the last 90 minutes of daylight.

In a Sydney summer that lands around 7pm. In the middle of winter it's closer to 4:30pm, so those sessions often sit on a weekend instead.

Weeknights are quieter in most locations, and quiet matters more than you'd expect when you're standing close and talking softly.

Allow 60 to 90 minutes. Bring 2 outfits if you'd like a change, something soft that moves in the wind and something a little more considered, and keep the colours close to what you'd genuinely wear at home.

Save the dates and everything after them

Save the dates are the first home most of these images find, and they're worth planning for on the day itself.

Ask me for a few wide horizontal frames with clear space off to one side, because that's where the text goes, and a vertical or 2 for the fridge.

The same set will carry your wedding website, your welcome sign and your thank-you cards later on. Your parents will have one as a screensaver inside 48 hours.

Print 3 before the wedding takes over

Planning a wedding has a way of swallowing a whole year, so choose 3 while the gallery still feels new to you.

One large enough for the wall, one small for the bedside, and one for whichever grandparent will put it on the mantelpiece and mention it every single time you visit.

There's a particular pleasure in walking past a framed photograph in the hallway on an ordinary Tuesday and having it catch you for a second.

These are the pictures of the 2 of you before the guest list, the seating chart and the 11 versions of the invitation wording. That's what you'll see in them years from now, and it's why I'd photograph the engagement even if the wedding were only weeks away.