What Should We Wear to Our Engagement Session?

If you just got engaged, first off, congratulations!!! And if you are already at the what-do-we-wear stage, you are further along than most people who ask me this.

Bring two outfits. The single most common outfit mistake I see at an engagement session is a couple showing up with one. An engagement session with me is 90 minutes at $800, and I am efficient with time; two outfits is simply a better use of the 90 minutes than one is. It roughly doubles what your gallery looks like, and it costs you a five-minute change in a car or a bathroom. That is the whole answer, and it is the part almost nobody plans for.

The rest of this is what to actually put in the bag.

Why two outfits and not one

Ninety minutes sounds short and it is not. We are usually not standing in one spot the entire time, and by the halfway point you have stopped being nervous, which is when the better frames start showing up anyway. Changing outfits right around then gives you two visually different galleries out of one session instead of one gallery with a lot of near-duplicates.

The pairing I would suggest, and this is a suggestion and not a rule:

• Outfit one, dressed up. The one you would frame. A long dress, a blazer, something with a bit of occasion to it.
• Outfit two, dressed down. The one that looks like your actual life. Jeans, a knit, a simple dress, whatever you would genuinely wear on a Saturday.

You end up with the images that go on the wall and the images that feel like you, which are usually not the same images.

You are getting about 100 to 200 photos back from the session with print rights, so there is plenty of room for both looks. Each of those images gets finished in color or black and white, whichever the frame wants, and I make that call.

For the guys: bring a second shirt, and wear an undershirt

This is the men’s version of the same mistake and it has nothing to do with style. If you sweat, and this is Texas so you probably do, one white shirt with no undershirt is a 90-minute gamble you are going to lose somewhere around minute 40.

So: an undershirt under the white shirt, and a spare shirt in the car. That is it. It is a $0 fix that has saved the back half of more sessions than any styling advice I could give you.

I always carry cold water to shoots, which helps, BUT, it does not help your shirt.

For the ladies: bring the lip gloss

The thing women forget most often is extra lip gloss or lipstick, and the reason is specific. There is a lot of kissing at an engagement session. A LOT. That is not me being cute about it, it is literally how I direct you.

Some of the things I actually say out loud during a session:

• “Kiss, kiss, kiss”
• “Kiss for real, you guys are engaged, no one’s watching”
• Asking him to whisper something to her and make her laugh

Whatever is on your lips at minute 5 is not going to be there at minute 50. Put the tube in a pocket, not in the car.

The outfits that photograph best, in one paragraph

Pick fabric that moves. Silk, linen, a long knit, a wide-leg pant, a dress with a hem below the knee; anything that does something when there is wind or when you walk. Motion is what makes a walking frame or a twirl frame work at all, and without it we are limited to standing still. Texture over logos. Solid or large-scale prints over tiny busy repeating ones, which pull the eye off your face. And coordinate rather than match, so the two of you read as a pair instead of a uniform; same tonal family, different pieces.

That is honestly the entire style guide. I am not going to give you a color chart, because my editing is true-to-life color, light and airy leaning and editorial for the most part, and it does not need you to dress to a palette. Photos that in 50 years still look exactly how the day did; your outfit just has to look like you.

The best-dressed engagement session I can point to

Merin and Jaison. They did two looks, one more traditionally American and one a cultural Indian look they already had, and it gave the gallery a range that you cannot fake by changing a shirt. Two genuinely different sets of images out of one session, which is exactly the argument for two outfits, taken all the way.

I also shot their wedding, and it is on the blog: Merin and Jaison at Hillside Estate. Worth a look if you want to see how an engagement session and a wedding gallery end up talking to each other.

If either of you has a cultural or family look you want in these photos, bring it. That is a better second outfit than anything a Pinterest board is going to hand you.

Send me your outfits before the session, it is free

I ask every couple what they are wearing, and I will review your outfits at no charge. Send me photos of the options and I will tell you honestly which one photographs better and why.

To be honest, this is the cheapest thing you can do to improve your gallery, and it takes me almost no time. It is not me changing your style; it is catching the one thing, a busy pattern, a shine, a clash between the two of you, before it costs us frames we cannot get back.

Send them early enough that there is still time to swap something out, not the night before 🙂

What season your session is in, and why it matters

I generally recommend shooting your engagement session in the same season as your wedding, though it is not always possible. Same season means the light, the greenery and the color of the whole thing match your wedding gallery, and your outfits get to make sense against both.

Practically that means a summer session is dressed for heat and shot early or late in the day, and a winter session gets layers with actual texture in them. If you are still picking where to shoot, my Dallas engagement location breakdown goes through city, ranch and nature, and I have done about 20 to 30 city engagement sessions in Dallas at this point, so I have opinions about all three.

What the session includes

The engagement session is 90 minutes at $800 on its own. It is included in Estate at $6,000, it is your choice of engagement or bridal in Legacy at $6,800, and both sessions are included in Heritage at $9,000. There is no travel fee anywhere in greater DFW. All of it is on the pricing page, all of it, because you should not have to book a call to find out what something costs.

You get about 100 to 200 images with print rights, sneak peeks in 1 to 2 weeks and the full gallery in 8 to 12 weeks, each frame finished in whichever of color or black and white suits it, and the gallery stays live for 3 years. Engagement and bridal sessions can also be moved for weather, which a wedding date cannot, so a bad forecast is not a crisis here.

For everything that is not clothes, the engagement session prep guide covers the rest of it.

Frequently asked questions

What should we wear for engagement photos?

Bring two outfits, one dressed up and one dressed down. Choose fabric that moves, like silk, linen or a long knit, skip tiny busy patterns and big logos, and coordinate your two looks in the same tonal family instead of matching exactly. Comfort matters more than a color chart, because it shows in your face.

How many outfits should I bring to an engagement session?

Two. The most common mistake I see is a couple bringing only one. A session is 90 minutes and I am efficient with the time, so two outfits is a better use of it and roughly doubles the variety in your gallery. A change takes about five minutes.

What do guys wear for engagement photos?

Something with texture that is not covered in logos, and two practical things. Wear an undershirt under a white shirt, and keep a spare shirt in the car. Texas heat gets to a shirt about 40 minutes into a 90-minute session, and there is no fix for that once it happens.

Do you review engagement session outfits before the shoot?

Yes, and it is free. I ask every couple what they are wearing. Send me photos of your options and I will tell you honestly which one photographs better and why. Send them with enough time left to actually swap something out rather than the night before the session.

Two outfits, an undershirt, and lip gloss

That is the list. Everything else on this page is a nice-to-have, but those three are the ones I would put on a sticky note.

Let me know if you want to look at dates, and send me your outfit options whenever you have them and I will take a look. If not then no worries!