engagement photos minus the awkward.

AK and I had never planned to have engagement photos taken. On a scale of 1 to 10, we’re about 9.9 awkward weirdos when it comes to posing for photos and we usually just end up pulling dumb faces or ruining each others’ hair. But when our wonderful wedding photographer Jess Kearney pitched the idea to us as a way for us all to get comfortable working together – a bit of a trial run for the big day, we thought we’d give it a shot. My biggest trepidation about the photos was that I thought I would feel completely uncomfortable in front of the camera and that would come across in the photos. Luckily, Jess has had a bit of practice getting beautiful photos out of perhaps sometimes awkward people and she came to us with a really fun, unique idea. Confetti!

Jess brought a big jar of multicoloured confetti to a park with beautiful trees and we spent about 30 min throwing it at each other. Easy. It was such a silly, fun afternoon in the park – I know I didn’t even stop for a second to think about the fact I was having my photo taken.

So I put together a bit of advice for anyone wanting to have engagement photos taken minus the awkward.

1. Choose a photographer with a photojournalistic style – that is, they tend to capture the natural, little moments throughout the day, rather than set up anything too posy or forced. We just danced around throwing confetti for what seemed like a couple of minutes and then Jess told us she was all done.

2. Plan a fun activity – in our case confetti, but it could be a picnic, playing on some swings or going fishing. It gives you something to do with your hands (trust me, it’s weirder than you think) and you can actually enjoy the experience rather than just praying for it to end.

3. Look in the mirror – some people know their best angles and what works for them in photos. I don’t know if this is because they have spent a lot of time in front of the mirror or because they inherently understand their facial angles and limitations, but they definitely know something I don’t. Instagram will attest to this – it’s full of people working their pout face from a high angle, a low angle, from the bathroom mirror and the change room at their gym. Anyway the point is – if you look at your face in the mirror for a couple of minutes, you might get a better understanding of how to work it. And you can avoid those angles that give you a wizard chin or a bung eye. But if you do catch a shot of that wizard chin, please put it on Instagram for funsies.

4. Don’t take yourself too seriously – you’re engaged (presumably to someone awesome) and you’re getting married. It’s amazing, it’s fun, it’s lovely. The engagement shoots that make me cringe are the ultra posey couples trying ultra hard to be ‘fierce’, as Tyra would say. I mean, do what you like, but those photos look pretty lame.

xx