Why engagement photos?

[FLgirl41]

I have seen on here a few times people mentioning engagement photos. I have also seen old friends of mine get engagement photos as well. I come from a very non-traditional family so neither of my siblings who have been married did them. Why do people get engagement photos? Is it necessary to get them? If so when do you get them? I am not getting married until fall 2009. I just don''t get the concept. Will someone explain what they are for? Thank you!!!!!

 

[Mandarine]

In my case I did them because it was free!! hehe.

Also it gave me an opportunity to see how well the "chemistry" between the photographer and us was...and now I think I will feel more comfortable with her when the wedding comes around. It also calmed my nerves about how teh wedding pictures would turn out!.

Now I have nice pictures to choose from to send to our granparents, etc (they all have been asking for pictures since we announced the engagement!)...I will also get one framed for the house and will use a couple of pictuers in the website. I won''t be using them for the save the dates, but I''ve seen people do that too...

M!

 

[neatfreak]

Many parents want them or people want them for the announcements in the paper. Also, as Mandarine mentioned, it''s great if you can test out your photographer for the big day!

 

[griffitk]

We had three sets taken (the first two sets were free from an aspiring photographer) and it wasn''t until the wedding did my husband stop asking the photographer what to do with his hands in every photo. It made our wedding photos much better and us more comfortable to have some practice posing.

It really depends how comfortable you and your fi are in front of the camera and with your photographer, as to their importance.

 

[Pandora II]

I didn''t have any - mainly because I didn''t get the ring till about 6 months later and by then we''d told everyone and it seemed a bit odd to go and have specific ones done.

 

[KimberlyH]

We didn''t have engagement photos taken. We did take family photographs (different photographer) shortly after we were engaged and there were a few shots taken of just us, but we did every combo of the family so it just worked out that way. A lot of photographers offer it as part of their wedding packages. It''s not a must do but they can be nice to have on hand for announcements, save the dates, etc. if you''re going to do all of that.

 

[candctroll]

As mentioned earlier, engagement photos gives you a chance to see your photographers work before hand and let''s you know what their style is.

We also used our engagement pics on the front of our invitations and we had one of them made into a personalized stamps for the invitations. They will also be used on our tables with quirky facts about us. Just some different ideas.

 

[FLgirl41]

Ok so here is another two more dumb questions... What are save the dates for??? And why do people do announcements in the newspaper? I have never understood that. Won''t it possibly upset people who see we are getting married but weren''t invited? Or am I just over looking things. Cause I know we can''t invite everyone we know cause we wont be able to afford it so I wouldn''t want to upset people...

 

[Pandora II]

I'm sending save the dates as all our guests will be out of town. We're getting married at the end of July which is a popular time of year for holidays and for weddings, and the town is very small with not a lot of accommodation available. I will send out my STD's in October so that people know that they are invited and will be able to arrange holidays and accommodation well in advance.

Announcements are for engagements and certainly in the UK don't mention the wedding date. Often there are also announcements following the wedding.

To be honest, most people realise how expensive weddings are and that people have maxium numbers. If people are that upset THEY have a problem.

I'm holding a second party in London for work colleagues etc a week after the wedding - but I'd find it very odd if people were upset or offended. Obviously we're not doing things like inviting all bar one person from a certain group to the actual wedding. eg It would be bad form to invite all your office mates except one.

 

[Mandarine]

I''m sending save the dates only to those traveling and will need more information since February is high season in South Florida. The save the dates will have the link for our website which will have all the hotel, transportation, activities, etc for the guests.

I can''t help you on the newspaper announcement part since in Venezuela only "socialites" would do this. I''m not sure how it works in the US though.

Most important though. None of it is "necessary". You only need to do those things that you feel are important to you guys. I''m skipping a lot of things because they''re just not important to me (or I couldn''t afford and didn''t really care whether I had them or not).

Just have fun with it! It''s your day, make it YOURS.

M~

 

[FLgirl41]

I see... I am finding I know less and less about wedding stuff and what not. So I am trying to cover all grounds so when I really get into all the planning I understand everything.

Also I just want to say, incase my tone comes across differently on the comp, everything I am saying is because I don''t know how things works and I tend to be worrisome so I don''t want to upset anyone. THat does make sense to not put the date too if I was to do a wedding announcement or is it an engagement announcement? But thank you everyone for explaining things!!!

 

[Mandarine]

your tone is just fine!!, we all have tons of questions so ask away!

On the save the dates, I could have done without them...just send an email to those traveling and be done with it....but I am dying to do a little bit of crafts so a friend of mine are I will be working on this little project to make some Spanish fans as the save the dates

One thing I do know is you won''t be able to please everyone, so concentrate on pleasing yourself and FI..hehe

M~

 

[Pandora II]

There is a great book called the Debretts Wedding Guide - it''s a UK book, but from what I''ve read here it''s pretty univeral information. It has lists of every possible thing you could want for a wedding and lots of handy hints. Lots of great photos too.

It''s new out this year and is available on amazon.

 

[labbielove]

Ours served a few purposes
1. they were "free" with our photo package (and frankly should be with all the $ we''re spending!!)

2. like Mandarine, we wanted the opportunity to work with the photogs to get a feel for how it is to be photographed like that- and for us it was so worth it- even in all our e-pics you can tell the difference in how we were more relaxed, more "us" in the later ones (300 shots later from the beginning!)

3. we were meeting with the photogs at our venue anyway (a museum with several buildings and acres of grounds) to come up with a plan for the day of anyway, so they took the opportunity to feel the place out. they''ve never shot there before so again, so glad we did it

 

[Fancy605]

We did not do engagement photos. We thought about it, but ours would not have been free, and we just ran out of time. We have lots of photos of ourselves that we are fond of though.

We did not put an announcement in the paper either. I think it is mostly one of those things where people like to have a clipping to cut out for their scrap books. I actually sort of like flipping through the paper and seeing people I used to know posed in a wedding announcement. It brings back old memories. But, we just never really found time to deal with it.

We DID do save the dates. My mother advised us to because our wedding day was a pretty big day for weddings and it was the weekend after a holiday. It ended up working out well that we sent them because people made plans to stay in town, etc.

 

[monarch64]

Hi, we did not do an engagement sitting/photos even though we were offered a free engagement photo session...neither DH nor I ever found time together to go see our photographer and sit for the session. We used a snapshot that was taken while we were on vacation in Jamaica to use for our hometown newspapers'' announcements and that was sufficient for us.

We did not do Save the Dates either...our engagement was only 9 months and we relied on word of mouth and emails to get the word out that we were getting married and we sent our invitations out three months before the wedding...

 

[risingsun]

We did enagement photos for the same reasons as others have stated. It have us a chance to work with a photograher before the wedding. I really liked her work and felt much more at ease going forward with the wedding pics. We used the engagement pics for the announcent in the newspaper and we gave copies to family. We still enjoy looking at those photos