You’ve found your engagement photographer, you’ve decided on a location (if you haven’t head on over to our other blog “Where to take Engagement Photos” so we can give you some tips!) and you’ve got the date set! All that work is done and out of the way and, even though you're probably beyond excited, you may be feeling a little anxious about the next step: figuring out what to wear for your engagement session.
Having an engagement session is the perfect way to kickstart the relationship with your photographer. It's often the first time you'll meet them in person, so it's an excellent opportunity to get to know each other and get comfortable with being in front of the camera before the big day.
We often get asked what you should wear and how to decide on what outfits to bring, so we've put together a handy guide (have you picked up on our pattern of making guides for everything yet?!) on what to wear for your engagement session with some tips straight from yours truly! These are the same tips we send to all of our clients so we mean business here. It's essential to choose something that LOOKS like you, is super comfortable and flattering, compliments your location, and makes you feel like your most baddddassss self. So, here are our top five tips for choosing what to wear for your engagement session:
You’ll want your engagement photos to feel authentic to you and your relationship, so dress like yourselves! If you have a bit of a signature style, stick to it! Unfortunately, this is probably *not* the day you want to wear something brand new or a style that's completely different from anything you've worn before.
Trust us, you’ll want to pick something you are each comfortable in. If an article of clothing isn’t fitting right, falling, pinching you, or whatever else… you’ll be uncomfortable and when you’re uncomfortable, it’ll show in your photos and we don’t want that! We want you to be your true happy sleeves so stick to something you feel comfortable and happy in!
This kind of ties in with being comfortable - it's crucial to pick an outfit that flatters your body type. Sometimes we buy an outfit and it just feels like we can’t pull it off - it’s not because we’re “not skinny enough” or “not cool enough” to pull it off or whatever other excuse… it just comes down to knowing how to work with your body shape so you look and feel your best! There are a ton of articles available that helps to explain how to dress for your body type (and it’s quite the art form 🤯) - google is your bestie!
Color is a big part of choosing your outfits. You don’t really want to both be in the exact same color as you’ll kind of blend together in the photograph (and while that sounds cool and ~artsy~ it’s not really what you’re looking for when it comes to your engagement photos). As a general rule of thumb, you should stick to pairing colors that relate to each other on the color wheel. You can view some engagement galleries on our website here to see how our couples have chosen colors in the past: https://earlynight.com/galleries/
You want to wear something that reflects the season and the weather! This also ties into comfort - don’t wear something very warm on a hot day. Consider the scenery too and what kind of outfit would complement that. For example, for beach photos, you may want to wear something more relaxed and skip the shoes whereas, in a more formal location, you may want to dress up.
We know that trying to decide what to wear for any occasion big or small can be a struggle. So, like always, we’re always trying our best to make things for our couples as easy as possible. If you’re not sure about an outfit, send it our way and we’ll give you our opinion on if we think it fits the scenery and will photograph well! We can also send you some galleries from past engagement sessions to give you a little more inspo. At the end of the day just remember it’s all about you and your partner - don’t overthink it!
Love our guide on what to wear for engagement sessions?
