Save the Date Photography in Dallas: The Frame That Becomes the Card
The two Dallas spots I actually shoot save-the-date photos at are White Rock Lake and the Dallas Arboretum. The session is 90 minutes and $700 on its own, or it comes included from the Estate package up, and you get about 100 to 200 images back with a print release. The one thing I do differently for a save-the-date is leave empty space in the frame, vertical or horizontal, so your stationer has somewhere to put your names and the date without covering your faces.
I’m Jose, the Dallas wedding photographer behind Jose Hiram Photography.
If you are reading this and you just got engaged, first off, congratulations!!! The save-the-date is usually the first thing your people see after the ring, which is a strange amount of pressure to put on one photo. So let me take some of it off you.
A save-the-date frame is not the prettiest picture in your gallery; it is the one with room in it.
What makes a save the date photo different from the rest of the engagement gallery?
Empty space. That is the whole difference, honestly.
Most of your engagement gallery is composed the way you would want it on a wall, which usually means the two of you filling the frame. A card is a different job. Your names, your date, your city and sometimes a line like “please save the date” all have to land somewhere, and if I filled every inch of the frame with the two of you, the designer has to either shrink you or type across your chin.
So when a couple tells me they want a save-the-date out of the session, I shoot some frames with the two of you toward one side and a quiet background on the other. Sky works. Water works. A plain wall works. A background with a lot of pattern and detail in it does not, because the text has to fight the picture and the text loses.
And the shape is whatever your card is. I know the internet says save-the-dates are always horizontal; that has not been my experience, because plenty of couples send a vertical card or a magnet. So I leave space in a vertical frame and in a horizontal one and let you decide later. It costs me about a minute during the session and it saves you the thing where you love an image and your stationer tells you it will not work.
Where do you shoot save the date photos in Dallas?
White Rock Lake and the Dallas Arboretum. To be honest, that is the real list, not a longer one I could pad out to look impressive.
White Rock Lake gives you open water and open sky, which is the easiest negative space in the city to drop text into, and it is free to walk into. I have a whole post on White Rock Lake engagement photos if you want to see how a session there actually runs.
The Dallas Arboretum is the other one, and it is the opposite kind of frame: hedges, beds, structure, color that changes with the season. It costs money to get into, and the rules there are specific enough that they deserve their own section.
If neither of those is your speed, the full Dallas engagement location guide covers city, ranch and nature options. The save-the-date frame can come out of any of them; I just need to know before we start so I am leaving the room for it.
What does it cost to shoot at the Dallas Arboretum?
There is no permit and no permit fee at the Dallas Arboretum. I want to say that first because couples arrive at that conversation expecting a few hundred dollars of paperwork, and it does not exist. What does exist is admission, and everyone who is shooting has to buy it, me included.
- Adult admission is $21.95 Monday through Thursday and $25.95 Friday through Sunday.
- Parking is $15 per vehicle.
- Tripods, reflectors, soft boxes and lighting are allowed in the Main Garden only 3-5PM daily. Handheld cameras and phones are fine any time on normal admission.
- The garden closes at 5PM, so that equipment window is the last two hours of the day.
- No professional photography at all during the 7-9AM Early Morning Member Walks.
- Nothing is allowed in the Children’s Adventure Garden.
- Tickets bought from third-party resale sites are void, so buy from the Arboretum.
BUT, here is the part worth planning around: my main lens lives on the camera and I work handheld for most of a session anyway, so the 3-5PM rule usually does not change what I shoot. It changes what a couple thinks they need. If somebody told you that you need a lighting setup in a garden at golden hour, you do not.
I also have a post on proposal photography at the Dallas Arboretum if the save-the-date conversation is actually a “I have not asked yet” conversation 馃檪
When should we do the engagement session if we want save the dates?
My general rule is to shoot your engagement session in the same season as your wedding. Not always possible, and I will never make it a condition, but it is the recommendation. A June wedding and a June session means the light, the green and the way you dress all match; a January session for a June wedding means the two sets of images sit next to each other on your website looking like two different couples.
On booking: I would say about 6 months out if you can, but really whenever you can confirm a date. My busiest months are May and October, and the weekends around those fill first.
What I am deliberately not going to give you is a printing and mailing countdown. I am not your stationer and I do not know their turnaround, their proofing rounds or their postage. Ask them for their calendar first, then bring me the date they need the image by, and we will back the session up from there. More session prep in engagement session prep tips.
Printed or digital save the dates?
My couples mostly print. That is what I see, over and over, and it is the one trend in wedding stationery I will actually vouch for because I watch it happen.
Which matters for the photo in one specific way: a printed card is held at arm’s length and lives on a refrigerator for months, so the two of you need to be recognizable at that size. Faces clear, faces visible, some piece of the frame that reads as “these two are together” from six feet away in somebody’s kitchen. Clever beats pretty on a wall print. On a card, clear beats clever.
What should we wear for save the date photos?
Send me what you are thinking and I will look at it. No charge, it is part of the session, and I would rather spend ten minutes on it in advance than see you in something on the day that I know is going to fight the background.
Ask me about colors, ask me about two outfits versus one, ask me whether the shoes matter (they mostly do not). I am not a stylist and I am not going to redesign your closet; I am just the person who has watched 350+ weddings’ worth of clothing hit a camera sensor, and some things print better than others.
What do we actually get?
- 90 minutes of shooting.
- About 100 to 200 images, each one finished in color or black and white, whichever fits the frame.
- A print release plus unlimited sharing, so you can hand the file to your stationer, your parents and whoever is making the magnets.
- Your gallery stays live for 3 years.
Pricing: the engagement session is $800 a la carte. It is included in Estate at $6,000, it is the engagement-or-bridal choice in Legacy at $6,800, and Heritage at $9,000 includes both an engagement and a bridal session. All of it is on the pricing page, because you should not have to book a call to find out what something costs.
The one thing I would tell you before the session
Tell me at booking that you want a save-the-date out of this. That is it. That one sentence is the difference between me composing for your wall and me composing for your card, and I cannot go back and add empty space to a frame after the fact.
Everything else about the day stays the same. We walk, you two do what feels comfortable, I fix what I do not like and otherwise let you be in love and document it. Somewhere in the middle of that, I take a step back, put you on one side of the frame, and leave your stationer some room to work.
Send me your wedding date and whether you are printing, going digital or doing both, and I will plan the session around the frame you actually need. If not then no worries! You will get wide frames in the gallery either way, it is just a lot easier when I know.
