Having an engagement session with your photographer is one of the smartest decisions you can have before your wedding day. Instead of going through Pinterest searching for the next big idea, you are rehearsing with your photographer to become natural in front of the camera for your upcoming wedding day.
Another smart decision you are making is learning how to pose. There are countless of ways to pose and I can write a book about this. But below are the 5 signature poses made easy for your engagement session that I often used for my couples. I really think this is going to give you some great inspirations for your own engagement session photos.
As a heads up, as you are going through these tips you may notice that I do a lot of “interaction poses”. What that means is that I ask couples to do something and I take photos of their reactions while they are doing it. This kind of interaction posing have 2 main purposes:
Firstly, you don’t look stiff in front of the camera. For example, I am not asking you to move your hands in a particular direction and hold for 5 minutes before I take the shot.
Secondly, your photos will look more natural, joyful and fresh because you are actually having fun with your loved one and reacting to each other.
I am not going to hold you back any longer but one last thing I want to mention is that after these 5 details posing tips I’m going to share with you 15 additional poses so you can rock your engagement session. Let’s do this!
1) The Cookie Monster
Instead of asking the both of you to stand in a particular way to make you nervous and stiff. I’ll have the Groom hugs the Bride from behind and tell them to make sure their faces are visible to my camera. Then, I’ll then ask the Groom to get all up to the Bride’s neck and smell her for a few seconds. In the middle of all these, I’ll tell the Groom to become the cookie monster and say “nom nom nom” to the Bride. By this time 99% of my couple will laugh and that’s the time I take the shot. It seems cheesy but it looks great on photo so try it out!
2) Belly-Button to Belly-Button
The best way to tell two people to stand face to face with toes pointing at each other without space in between is simply “Let’s stand belly-button to belly-button please”. Doing this achieve all 3 things I mentioned above (toes pointing at each other, torso facing each other, no space in between). Then, I’ll have the Bride to turn her face towards the camera and ask the Groom to kiss the Bride on the forehead. This is actually one of the must have traditional engagement photos that you should have on your engagement session. A lot of couples actually use this pose for their canvas on the wedding day.
3) Looking Above
As simple as the title said, the Bride just simply need to look up towards the camera. For me as the photographer on the other hand, I’ll need to stand on a higher ground for this shot. For the Groom, I’ll tell him to smell your Bride’s hair as if she just came out from a fancy salon!
4) The Walking Shot
This pose may seem easy but there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, you’ll be walking away from the camera, make a stop, turn around for a photo, then U turn back and walk back towards the camera. Sounds complicated right? It’s not and I can show you when we work together.
Secondly, make sure you have eye contact with each other while you are doing the walk. A good tip is to talk to each other and even make a joke while walking. Otherwise the photo does not look as intimate as most engagement session photos should be. Thirdly, try to walk as if you are walking on a thin line. Doing so will make you overlap your front foot over your back foot to enhance body posture.
5) The Backlit Shot
I usually do this when the sun comes down! For this silhouette shot, simply face each other and make sure you leave some gap between the two of you so your shadows won’t combine together. Then, I’ll use an off camera flash behind the both of you and point it at a background with heavy texture and take the shot.
Alright, here are the top 5 engagement session posing tips. Below are an additional 15 posing ideas for your reference. Enjoy!
6) Back to Back
7) Featuring her/him
8) Lift Her Up
9) Admire the Sky
10) Open Pose
11) Jumping Shot
12) Lying Down on Grass
13) The Dip
14) The Backward V
15) Half Body Shot
16) The 1st Dance Practice Shot
17) Split Chest in Half
18) LOL
19) The Sparkler Shot
20) Sit and Snuggle
I hope this post gave you a lot of inspiration on your upcoming engagement session. Contact me if you have any questions and if you’d like to schedule a session with me so we can do these types of pictures together!