Engaged & Wedding Tips from a Photog
How to “pose” and feel confident in your engagement and wedding photos!
1. Interaction is key!
The bonus about doing a couples or engagement shoot is that you can feel safe knowing you’re not in this alone. Right next to you, you have (hopefully) the person who makes you feel the most comfortable and confident, your significant other. The more you both engage and interact with one another, the more natural it will all start to feel and the more you will settle into your photo shoot. Your photographer might give you some direction to bring this out of you, but they also wont complain if you go right ahead and interact with one another.
Here are a few ideas of some ways you can engage with each other so you’ll never feel lost without something to do:
Play with or Fix your partners hair / brush it out of their eyes or off their face
Trace the outline of your partners face with your finger tips
Whisper sweet nothings OR dirty thangzzzz in their ear - your choice ;)
Slow dance or Hug and sway side to side
Tickle fight
Have a staring competition
Drunk walk - Pretend your both hammered and pull each other along while you walk. The more you bump into each other or nearly fall over, the better!
2. Get close
Like REALLY close. If you’re almost going crosseyed, you’re doing it right! Snuggle up in there.
3. Add Movement
Movement makes photos SO much more interesting. And while a few moments of stillness can also be nice every now ad then, your photographer will capture so much more variety if there is some movement happening. Even if your sitting down hugging, try some of the above actions like playing with hair, tickling or tracing your partners face to add in an action or even just swaying side to side. Even just lots of little kisses can be nice.
4. Feel free to have a chat
Though probably steer clear of serious chats or boring "did you turn off the iron before we left” as this can make you look a little too serious. But if you know you are both chatty and that talking to each other will bring out some smiles and laughs, don’t feel like you’re not allowed to keep chatting just cause your getting your photo taken. Most likely, if you get a photographer like me, you might even be given some topics to chat about as a prompt or have some pretty good banter going on with your photog (I love banter) which all helps to make you feel more at ease.
5. Plan an activity
If you and your partner have a mutual hobby or activity that you enjoy, this could be the perfect time to bust it out, this is also a really awesome way of personalising your shoot to make it better represent you as a couple. Love hiking? Let’s go for a hike or walk to a beautiful look out! Are you foodies / wine lovers? Pack a picnic!
It doesn’t have to even be all that planned out in advanced. I even once had a couple randomly bust out some take downs on the beach since they both practiced Brazilian Jiujitsu - it made for some seriously cute photos that they really cherish + made for some beautiful laughing shots because they felt comfortable, confident and free to be themselves.
6. Get handsy
Booty grabs are always cute as heck! But more than that, most couples photography has a lot to do with what the hands are doing. I like to always educate my couples on this before we start shooting and “pose them” by telling them where to place their hands, but the general rule of thumb is that your hands should always be doing something. Whether its hugging your partner, holding their hand, in a pocket, holding your dress, lifting your lovers chin up so you can plant a kiss on them or grabbing the booty. Whatever it is, the hands should always have something to do, be put in a pocket or be holding something.
7. Be Yourself!!!
This is the reason I direct my couples to do all of the above and is really te ultimate goal of wedding, engagement or really any kind of Portrait Photography… When I direct my couples, my intention behind everything I do is to bring out the most authentic version of you two and to evoke real, genuine and honest moments that happen between you. All of this is merely a means of creating a space in which you feel comfortable and empowered to showcase who you are, the love between you and your partner and the story you have to tell. So above all else, be true to YOU. And make sure you pick a photography who you feel like you can be yourself around, in all your weird and wonderful ways!
