Previously by S.H. Carlyle: Tips on Interviewing Your Doula
Piggyback of Maniacal Laughter: Bride gets on groom’s back. Groom holds her up and turns with a smile, as if to say “How did YOU get up there?” Woman offers wry smile in return, perhaps implying: “How about YOU carry ME for a while, the same way I carried you for two years while you were finishing that PhD you’re not using.”
This Barn is Beautiful. Locate barn. Ignore barn owner’s requests not to photograph there. Threaten to expose his secret (people with barns often have secrets). If there are animals in the barn, get them out of there; let the creepy barn owner deal with them. Then get a few shots of the couple being casual around the barn, just like hanging out around the barn is something they do all in the time instead of something they do none of the time.
Vulcan Mind Meld. Couple places heads together. Each half-closes their eyes. In that moment their minds are one. They share each other’s hopes, fears, and plans for the future. This will also let each of them know which of them thinks they’re settling. Capture that moment forever.
We’re in a Field Now! Find a wide, gorgeous field. Stamp down whatever is growing there so you have space to work. Maybe start a small brush fire to add to the background. Note: the couple might express concerns about ticks and Lyme disease. Tell them that they should be fine (be sure you’re wearing long pants and sleeves, of course).
Write It On Your Palm. Have the bride write a note on her palm to show the camera. The message should relate to the engagement (“I said yes!”). It should not be a political statement (“Thanks Obama!”) or personal vendetta (“Eat shit, Jess”). The groom can also write a complementary message, but should avoid revealing contentious issues; e.g., Groom: “Save the date…” – Bride: “That your mother picks” OR Bride: “I’m going to be with you…” – Groom: “Until I have the courage to admit I prefer men.”
JUMP! Love makes people feel like they can fly. In that spirit, have the couple hold hands and jump in the air. Catch them in mid-flight, her hair askew, his arms waving. Have them jump 25 to 30 more times. Yell at them if they say they are too tired and question their commitment.
Balloons. LOTS of Balloons. Have the groom hold a bunch of balloons. Suggest to the couple that some of the balloons might be filled with bees. Pop them one by one. This will add dramatic tension to the shots. The balloons will improve the color composition. The bees are mainly for your own amusement.
Lap Time. Bride sits. Groom lies down, puts his head in her lap and looks up at her. “What will our life be like together?” the bride wonders to herself. Also: “I can’t really feel my legs.” “Have you gotten the shot yet?” the groom will ask you. “Almost. Stay perfectly still,” you’ll say, despite your camera’s battery having run out long ago.
Show the Ring. Bride extends hand, displaying engagement ring. If the ring is adorned with a precious stone that is smaller than the bride would have liked, tell her you can always alter the image in the editing process. (Similarly, if the groom is less attractive than the bride would have liked, employ the same strategy.) When you focus in on the ring, ask how much it cost and refuse to take another picture until they tell you. Ask them why they’re being so weird about this. Tell them how much things you own cost (e.g., camera, jeans, dachshund) to make them feel at ease. This will break down barriers and also give you the opportunity to brag about your expensive dachshund.
Tags: engagement photos, relationships, s.h. carlyle
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An excellent choice for a note written on the palm is a cultural reference that will be dated and incomprehensible even a decade later, e.g., “Not Penny’s boat”
Write a message in code, stare intently at camera, hold exactly five blue flowers in other hand. Tell everyone an older version of you appeared and gave you these instructions.
Clearly you’ve read my graduation quote in my grade 12 yearbook. “37?! Into the pit!” Ha ha…yes…ha. Good times we had. With a… pit?
I don’t mean to alarm you, but I’ve read every graduation quote in your grade 12 yearbook.
Not alarming. It’s the only way to stay hip with the kids.
TOO REAL.
SNIFF!!!!
Obligatory heart hands–first on Instagram, now mandatory at engagement shoots.
A year later when they’re doing the mandatory maternity photoshoot, they can do the heart hands over the baby bump for a nice callback to the engagement photos!
And then heart hands on the face of their child graduating from college, and so on.
And eventually their hands on their daughter-in-law’s baby bump. It’s the circle (heart hands) of liiiiiifffe!
No. Must go on Facebook first. A Facebook relationship post is like
The MOST official.
minimum 97 photos, separate album for the ring
I remember being *flabbergasted* when I first learned people had money and the inclination for engagement shoots — custom photo shoots seem like a frou-frou rich person thing to me? — but screw it, you know I’ll probably commission one if I ever get the chance.
Our photographer, who is super reasonable for wedding photography (flat hourly rate, instead of nebulously-described “package” costing $1 bajillion), included an engagement photo shoot with the cost of our wedding photos. We’d already done a Save the Date with photos taken by a friend, but it’s hard to turn down something for free!
We were totally not cut out for it, though. She wanted to take a photo with me jumping on his back, which I declined, as I outweigh him and was wearing a long dress, and she suggested “Well, just do something that’s really you!” But we decided we didn’t actually need a photo of me pinching his butt, or him licking my face, or any of the other weird stuff we do to express our affection.
I am kinda looking forward to wedding photos; after all. they will probably be the one time in my life I spring for professional photos! But yeah the center of the Just Be Yourself / Look Like An Engagement Photo Couple venn diagram is empty.
A photographer is pretty much the oly thing we got for our courthouse low-key wedding, and yeah she did an included engagement-type shoot as well. Fortunately she didn’t have us do too many awkward poses. It also helped I think that she was typically a family portrait photog vs a dedicated wedding photographer.
100% have a professional photo with my spouse licking my face. <3 to you. (It wasn’t an engagement shoot but still, one of my most treasured images.)
Ours were included in the cheapest package our wedding photographer offered. We weren’t going to do them, but they were a nice way to get comfortable with our photographer/being photographed before the wedding itself.
You’re probably never going to be completely comfortable having a stranger take pictures of you while you kiss (and wow, there is definitely an extra element of weirdness to it when you’re both ladies!), but it becomes slightly more normal when you’ve already done it once. It gets even easier if you included a creepy puppet the first time around like we did.
We weren’t going to do anything for engagement photos, and actively planned against it, but a friend of ours—not a photographer or anything, just a human person with human clicky fingers—offered to walk around with us in a pretty park in L.A. and take some photos. We involved the dog in most of them. And they actually turned out pretty great and I’m glad we did it.
So, an alternative to paying someone to take professional photos might be just finding a game and willing friend, a pretty spot, a cute pooch, and hamming it up.
Engagement photos can also be a good way to make sure the photographer is right for you if you get then done early enough — if you don’t like the engagement shoot, or photos, it might worthwhile to find another photographer for your wedding.
I probably won’t ever get married for a LOT of reasons, but I have had to do a LOT of work to get both to that decision, and to be okay with that decision. And as far as I’ve been able to tell, having really nice quality pictures of me and my life partner are basically the thing about the whole wedding process that I am most envious of. So, at some point when he and I are both relatively healthy at the same time and have enough money to cover it, we’ll do one of the engagement shoots without the actual engagement, and check that off the list.
We did one; our friend is a photographer and he and his photographer girlfriend did the shoot for us in exchange for a prepaid credit at the local brewery.
I really wanted to remove the engagement shoot from our photography package until the photographer said it was mostly teach people how to pose for pictures. YES PLEASE. My engagement and wedding photos are the only ones in which I don’t look like a maniac because they are the only occasions at which I remembered her advice.
Our photographer offered the engagement photos as a preview for wedding photography. If we liked the pics he took for the engagement, then he’d knock the price of those off the total wedding photos package, which was a really good deal. We did, so he photographed our wedding.
I’m a wedding photographer (with my husband) and we do engagement shoots as part of our package. As much as anything it’s a way for us to get to know the couple and for them to get to know us, not be freaked out by the camera, learn a bit about posing (or what they hate about posing and would rather not do). It’s a kind of practice run for the wedding day.
(Also people use them for Save the Dates or wedding guest books with pictures of the couple. Or just to have pretty pictures of themselves.)
I am OBSESSED with bad engagement photos. There’s something about them that I find truly delightful (so sad that this tumblr doesn’t update anymore).
Don’t forget train tracks. When in doubt, find a probably abandoned set of train tracks for your profound, possibly black and white engagement shot.
There was a recent shoot where a party had to RUN BECAUSE A TRAIN WAS COMING. The rail people were pretty mad at them.
Train tracks are such a weird choice to me; but maybe some people *want* to foreshadow an Anna Karenina-style end to their relationship, who knows.
I did that for my senior pictures. Or I really wanted to. Cause Arty. (And 17.)
Yeah, my senior pics involved a barn. I haven’t been near a barn since.
Me too! Although, to be fair, mine were in a ghost town.
At least around here, the train tracks are probably not abandoned, ha! There’s a parking lot for a popular set of hiking and biking trails next to the main track and a switching spur for BNSF, so I’ve often seen people who set up the whole lighting rig with reflectors, etc. on the main track that has freight trains *and* coal trains barreling through every few hours. So far, no one’s been hit by a train, but it is bizarre.
They don’t seem to realize that it is still a functional track, because when you mention it, they often look surprised, shocked, and, occasionally, even scared–
Oh man, thank you for linking to that tumblr, because that linked to this inexplicable compilation of russian photos: http://pryf.livejournal.com/4211139.html possibly nsfw? but worth it?
I have just now developed an insatiable desire to go back in time, grab a couple of uncooked chickens, dress them in fake tux/gown, and pose with my fiancee & I making them pretend-marry each other.
I am 100% going to have a Photoshopped centaur wedding photo. I refuse to marry a man who wouldn’t be game for that.
Completely valid criteria for life partner selection
If you don’t find one, I’m game. I’ll just draw on a moustache.
WHAT
I always assumed some of these were based on idiomatic puns (especially the “little woman in his pocket” one, which was eeew, but which totally seems like the kind of thing people might say, and which someone would want to illustrate for some reason) and some of them seem like they might have some folkloric explanation (I’m thinking the woman whose loved ones were framing her face with birch logs). Alternately, I could just be telling myself that in order to account to myself for the extreme weirdness.
LMFAO our engagement photographer found us some train tracks. I thought it was a little goofy, but those pics ended up being my favorites out of the batch so we have them framed. The fun part is everyone who comes into our house being like WHAT YOU COULD HAVE DIED!* Mostly they amuse me.
*We were literally *on* the part that crosses over the road and has the giant alarms on it, if you could expand the shot even a tiny bit further out from how it’s framed you would see the big bells and bars, so we would have had plenty of warning.
“The opportunity to brag about your expensive dachshund.” I am dead of LOLs.
Ours is expensive, but that’s our fault because we can’t help but buy him a bazillion toys and better food than we eat.
I totally expected “expensive dachsund” to be a tag at the end.
THE BARN ANIMALS DON’T CARE ABOUT LOVE
Gritty Urban Alley shoot, custom-painted graffiti to coordinate with bride’s dress
Even for a couple in the throes of not-yet-disillusioned-although-almost-definitely-consummated young love, the Vulcan Mind Meld is way too intense and intimate; it represents a total lowering and/or bypassing of mental and emotional boundaries, and should only be practiced between totally platonic officers of your Space Navy.
i love you
this is everything
play this at our wedding
Best K/S supercut ever.
Thank you for the most important part of this Tuesday.
how many times is too many times in a row to watch this?
asking for a friend.
I will definitely be employing these guidelines when me and Mr.DuBois-to-be take our engagement pictures this fall…Actually, if it we were going for realism, the engagement pictures would feature he and I passed out on the rug in front of the couch because that’s where we fell asleep while matching socks and/or eating baked meatballs from the Italian place around the corner…you know, because romance!
I’m newly engaged (yaaay), and I am so incredibly tempted to send this to my mom before she even starts making noise about engagement photos. Of course, she might actually think some of these are excellent ideas, so.
YAAAAAAY!
My mom has apparently been fielding questions from all of her friends (who I may or may not have ever met) since our engagement, it’s like people have the impression you plan a wedding down to the last detail and THEN announce you’re engaged. Mom is totally on the side of “don’t know, they’ll figure it out when they’re good and ready,” which is way more chill than I expected.
Yeah, my parents (as well as my fiancee’s) are both thrilled and already poking us about Wedding Things; we’re trying to fend them off with repeated mentions of how long we’re thinking the engagement will be, just so long, so much time to plan…and it’s working, sort of?
yeah, it’s a weird balance of being glad they’re excited and dreading said excitement. Luckily most of the detailed questions so far have come from his side so they’re his job to address. [fist bump] stay strong, Toast-vent often!
Good luck to both of you and get ready FOR THE GAUNTLET. This video on wedding planning from college humor helped a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBTpRaws5ts
We just had ours done last weekend! I wasn't sure about the whole thing going into it, but it was really nice to get to spend some time with our photographer before the wedding, so that it won't just be "Hullo stranger, please capture one of the most intimate and meaningful moments of my life" on the wedding day.
It also made me feel very happy about our choice of photographer! Not only was she a cool lady, but she also was very much into a more documentary-style of shooting. We just hung out together for a few hours and she took a bunch of pictures. There was another couple doing an engagement shoot with a different photographer at the same spot, and they Went For It in a way that would make me very uncomfortable — external flash, piggy back rides, asking strangers (in a public park!) to clear a 25 foot radius.
When my husband and I got engaged, we went to a highly-recommended local photographer’s home office to talk about maybe booking him for our wedding. We were greeted by a very tall, thin woman wearing a string bikini and rollerskates. She said, “Oh, yeah, he’s in the back” and rollerskated away down the street. He later informed us that it was his girlfriend.
I love this story so, so much.
I used to live next to a park with a gorgeous cactus garden in it. I’ve often wondered how many times my unshowered, hoodie and gaucho pants-bedecked self and my pooping dog were edited out of people’s engagement shoots. I really hope we made it into at least one couple’s final prints.
ooh, ooh, do one for pregnancy-announcement pics too!
Belly interaction. Mother-to-be not showing yet? No problem! Act as though she is, casting a pallor of bodily insecurity over her maternal “glow,” then proceed to take uncomfortably close pictures of her stomach, things balanced on her stomach, hands creating various signs over her stomach, and words written in paint pen on her stomach. Yes: heart hands, due dates. No: rude gestures, conception dates.
Representative objects. The couple could be holding a tiny pair of converse, sure, or perhaps a onesie in the correct gender-segregated color scheme, but consider more avant garde material depictions of the almost-human, like a vomit-stained sweatshirt (that will soon be dad’s only weekend-wear), a box of Tyson chicken nuggets (the only meal accepted by the whole household without complaint in 5 years), or a bucket of lentils, each lentil representing a week of overtime each parent will have to work to afford college by the 2033.
oh man, the conception date would be so much more interesting, though
When I was about 17 my mum gave me the diary she kept for her honeymoon (a 5 month camping trip around Australia) so I do know the date of my conception. And the location. Which was kind of ooky, but I also know how badly my mum was smashing my dad in their ongoing backgammon tournament, that if I was male my name would’ve been ‘Ned’ or ‘Ben Garnet’ (still kinda sad my middle name isn’t Garnet TBH), and how excited she was when they finally made it into a town where they could call family, so I’ll live with the weirdness.
this comment is stellar, maybe *you* should do the one for pregnancy-announcement pics
And follow it up with the newborn pics. I have friends that recently did those, and was disgusted to hear how many times their sweet 7 day old baby pooped all over the blankets.
I’m so flattered, I wouldn’t want to steal Mr. Carlyle’s idea, though.
Also no: recreations of the conception.
We didn’t do engagement photos, really, except we kind of did when we’d been dating two weeks, and they involved a willow tree and are twee as all fuck. But they were sort of attached to a headshot session I was doing so ???
Our wedding photography is pretty much the only thing we’re spending any money on. The photographer is amazing and is cutting us a HUGE deal because she’s so excited by our wedding concept, so that’s cool.
BRB, thinking too hard about how to get bees into a balloon.
With one of those water-balloon fillers, except, y’know, bees.
Mr. Burns’ dogs with bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot bees at you, but for water balloons.
Balloon stuffers. They’re these plastic gadgets that look like an inverted balloon without a few inches near the tie. You get special wide-mouthed balloons, stretch them over the balloon stuffer, and the pump the air in between the balloon and the stuffer out. So the balloon is fully stretched out and you can put whatever you want (bees) inside before you tie it.
Jar of bees, funnel?
http://www.sadanduseless.com/2011/02/awfully-phot…
WHAT. WHY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJQVlVHsFF8
Inspiration?
Gaaah, Jess is THE WORST. (I am watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix for the first time.)
this is EXACTLY the article I needed, in the wedding-enagement-anniversary-relationship-announcement-baby-pictures WARZONE that is my life for the past 2 weeks.
I misread “Eat shit, Jess” as “Eat shit, Jesus”
Might have to use that in my lesbian wedding photo shoot.
I misread it in exactly the same way and then I was confused to see comments about Gilmore Girls.
“Eat shit, Jess” OH MY GOD
I used to think this was a Straight People Thing (the barn! What’s up with the barn?) but in the last few years the Gays have begun to marry and these tropes began appearing in our engagement photos as well.
It’s insidious and must be stopped.
Please tell me anyone else remembers that random Orlando Bloom fangirls video with Graham Norton in which he reads fan-fighting to Orlando and one of them is EAT SHIT, JESSICA, IT’S CARROT? Because that is all I can think of right now with the “Eat shit, Jess” hand scribble.
That’s EXACTLY what popped into my head. What an iconic moment, I remember watching that at like 14 and thinking fandom couldn’t get any crazier (how wrong I was!!!)
THIS WAS MY EXACT THOUGHT AS WELL! That video is my favorite.
and then you WOKE UP
I was planning to not do engagement photos at all until a friend of the family offered to shoot them as a gift to us. We used them plus other photos (us as little kids, etc.) and blank spaces to create that “sign-in” book people have at the reception, so now we have a neat memento full of us and messages from our wedding guests, and I’m kinda glad we did it.
But yeah, we tried to avoid these poses, lol.
My daughter volunteers as a reenactment type person for a local historic village where time stopped in 1832. (I feel like there’s a better way to write that, but I’m tired.) Anyway, it’s a lovely village and I stay with her (or near her) when she goes because she’s nine. It’s lovely, yes, but it’s nearly ruined by people and their photographers. All kinds of events – holiday cards, engagement, pregnancy, weddings, etc etc. I once saw two brides, in full on white frou frou dresses, get into the pond which no one is allowed into. IDK. My life would be much more pleasant if this nonsense stopped. I don’t exactly know why I get so annoyed, it’s just the vibe, which you captured perfectly here. I feel immensely validated by my disdain. So, thanks!
Not doing engagement pictures, no way, no how. I’m just not that into myself.
They don’t allow you to have bees in here.
This happened several Sundays ago. As I was standing outside my church, greeting people as they entered or passed by, a photographer with couple in tow proceeded to make photos at one of our entrances, blocking it for all intents and purposes. Six other days of the week, the doors aren’t used but she thought Sunday morning was the. Perfect Moment for a photo shoot at the entrance of a church, to which none of them had any connection.
I immediately pictured you as Sidney Chambers from Grantchester.
My (very crowded) farmer’s market a few Saturday’s ago at about one pm, or peak hour on a gorgeous day so extra tourists there, too. A FULL WEDDING PARTY thought that would be an awesome time to muscle in in their finery and take twee pictures by the stands of fruit and vegetables. People were actually getting out of their way, the vendors meanwhile losing out on gobs of sales. I was cranky and just moved on in and got my tomatoes. I hope I’m in there pictures. They could have come at 9 am, when there are maybe one or two shoppers, or 4 pm, when there are maybe ten or so. But no,Metheny had to come at 1 pm when there are literally hundreds. Ugh.
… despite your camera’s battery having run out long ago.
Oh, you.
I came down here without finishing the article just so I can quickly say: thank you, THANK YOU, for spelling “complementary” correctly. I am so used to seeing “complimentary” instead of “complementary” that they were starting to merge into the same word in my mind. AND THEY ARE NOT!
(Unless they finally enact one of those spelling reforms people are always talking about and make English spelling more phonetic, in which case I’ll just have to grin and bear it, I suppose.)
*End nitpickiness, back to reading delightful article*
The “complement” is a math concept, and in college I (thank goodness) had a math prof who taught that concept whose first language was French, so he pronounced complement and compliment in different ways (and I think he actually further exaggerated the difference), which is the ONLY way I can remember the difference.
Yes! My first language also happens to be a Romance language, and I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason why I can still tell the two apart pretty easily. And even with that advantage, I’ve become so used to reading “complimentary” in the place of “complementary” all over the Internet that when I first saw the “e” it looked wrong to me. (Same with “pour” and “pore”, or “reign in” and “rein in”.)
I can only imagine how difficult it must be to keep all those spellings straight as a monolingual English speaker. At least I have distinct phonetic pronunciations associated with all those Latinate words.
Oh lord, we won an engagement shoot in a raffle at a wedding vendor fair, from a photographer neither of us would have ever picked.
The results are a glorious combination of my discomfort both with being photographed and with performative romance, and her very (to me) tacky, cutesy style. There are a couple of nice photos we might buy, but honestly they happened almost by accident (and half of them are the photos of the downy woodpecker I pointed out in a tree that she thought was really cool.)