Choosing your Engagement Session Clothes

Recently I did a Facebook Live post about how to choose the clothes you wear to your engagement session. This was in response to several brides in the area asking what to wear. So this is for photographers and couples, alike. I’ll share some helpful tips on what to wear.

Consider your surroundings

You’ve carefully planned your location. Now consider the color palette of the location. Is it full of greenery? Is it more urban? What is the predominant color palette for the scene. The focus of the images is you, the love you share and the fun you have together. Our eyes will focus on those things if we’re not seeing jarring color combinations. So choose colors that are close to each other on the color wheel or are on the opposite side of the color wheel to compliment (like the blues with the sunset below). And yes, it can be jarring if we saw bright pink in a lovely palette of fall colors.

Consider the season

Speaking of fall colors…what season is it? If you’re being photographed in the fall, the colors will be rich and deep. If you’re being photographed outside in the spring, the colors tend to be more bright and vibrant. Match the “tone” of what you’re wearing to the appropriate season and you’ll take your photos from snapshots to wonderful pieces of art.

Solid colors or minimal patterns

OK. So I know floral patterns are all the rage right not for us ladies. I own a floral dress or two. However, I’m going to recommend that you avoid these for your engagement photos. Why? What does someone notice when you show photos with you in that lovely dress? They say “I love your dress!” Which is great! But…would you rather them say or think, “look how in love you two are!” And…in 5, 10, 15 years, you might end up cringing at what is in style now. 😉

Not white – unless at beach

White is popular for brides to wear for their engagement session. If you want to go this route, I recommend that you have your session at the beach, in a studio or some place equally bright. If you go off into the woods or local park wearing white you’ll be “off-key” with your surroundings. Again, the focus will be your clothes and not the relationship. Obviously the big exception to this is your wedding day! HA! I’m sure you knew that!

Coordinate but not match

Coordinate your colors with the bride and groom. You don’t want to wear matching clothes like Grandpa and Grandma sometimes do. But you do want your color palette to be cohesive. You are a couple. 🙂

Sleeves

Ladies (and men, too, if you’re so inclined), stay away from sleeveless shirts (unless you have killer arms…like some lucky gals!) You’ll thank me for this. Often we as photographers like to have the couple looking at each other. If your bodies are facing each other, what is closest to the camera? That’s right, your arms. So there ends up being a good portion of the image containing a whole lot of arm.

v-neck

Ladies if you’re a bit fluffy, like myself. Consider a v-neck top. This has a very slimming effect on our faces. Try it sometime. Put on a scoop neck top and then put on a v-neck top. It’s a vastly different look.