How to Make Your Engagement Session Adventurous!
Engagement photographs- these images are no longer just a sneaky photo taken from behind a tree by your best friend as the man of your dreams asks for your hand in marriage. Nope, although these sneaky engagement photos might be some of the most treasured photos in your camera roll, engagement photography is now so much more!
When you are booking a professional engagement session you can expect an amazing 1.5-2 hour session where you have the chance to go to some truly epic and gorgeous location with your love and get some wonderful and incredible images of you both celebrating your love and decision to join your lives together!
This is a BIG moment for you! You may use these photos for your “Save the Dates” or your Wedding Invitations, you might print them out to decorate the walls of your first home, you may put them in an album for your guestbook for your wedding and of course, you’ll post them all over your social media!
There are sort of two main options for your engagement session. You can choose a nice park or natural area to go to where you’ll have a nice nature and greenery backdrop, and make this a shorter experience, or you can turn this engagement session into an adventure and journey out to a more remote location with your photographer and turn it into a half or full day experience!
As a wedding photographer I LOVE it when my clients choose to turn their engagement session into an adventure session, because 1) I know we are going to get the most INCREDIBLE portraits, and 2) because it gives me a chance to truly get to know my couples while we get hang out all day!
I decided to put this blog together to give my Kate Holt Photography Couples some inspiration for just how epic their engagement sessions can be, and also to offer up these type of experiences to new couples who perhaps aren’t aware that their engagement session can be an adventurous experience!
So check out some of the tips below on how to turn your engagement session into an epic adventure!
Step One
Choose a Photographer who is willing to go above and beyond for your engagement session!
If having an adventure for your engagement session is an attractive option, you’ll want to choose a photographer who is on the same page! Some photographers use a lot of equipment while they do their sessions, so the thought of hiking out to a rather precarious or adventurous area with a ton of lighting equipment might not be up their ally.
Look for photographers who say they love adventure and the outdoors in their “About Me” page, or those that feature “Adventure Sessions” in their Instagram or portfolio pages.
You’ll also want to meet them or at least video chat with them prior to booking. The last thing you want is to plan this big adventure and then get stuck in the car with someone whose personality drives you nuts!
Choosing a photographer who you feel comfortable around and who is someone you walk away from a conversation with feeling great about yourself will also go a LONG way in getting those true candid images where you and your partner’s personalities can really shine through.
If doing an adventure session is something you are thinking with, discuss this with any photographer you are interviewing. Do they get excited about this with their eyes lighting up, or do they respond conservatively or cautiously like maybe this is something outside their normal services?
You can tell a lot about a person by their responses to your wedding and engagement plans and you should leave any conversation with a photographer or any wedding vendor for that matter, feeling supported in the wedding plans you have and excited that if you brought them on your “wedding team” they would be totally on board with the vision you have!
Step Two
Choose the style of location that fits you best!
When I say “style of location” I mean the general type of environment that would fit you best!
Are you the type of couple who would love an adventure in the mountains with tons of snow around you? Or are you the type of couple who more prefer a beachy vibe and images of you two spashing in the surf are more your style than snowball fights?
Do you love hiking to epic vistas and would prefer images with an epic overlook as your backdrop or are you more at home in the forrest and love hiking to waterfalls where you two can dip your feet in a chilly river pool, embracing as the sound of water pouring over rocks fills the air?
Or maybe you love the high desert and your ideal day is spent with a large floppy hat shading your shoulders as the colors of red, burnt orange and tan make the perfect backdrop for your love?
Maybe you love going to a quiet place for a pick-nick and love the idea of a vast floral field providing the most lovely backdrop as the two of you share flutes of champaign or glasses of your favorite wine!
We have the most wonderful advantage living in the Pacific Northwest that all of the above scenes are all within a three hour drive for most of us! We have epic volcanoes that have glaciers with snow year-round, we have the Columbia River Gorge giving us some truly epic overlooks, we have gorgeous coastlines, epic expanses of forest, gorgeous wildflower fields in spring and high desert areas areas such as Smith Rock National Park or The Painted Hills which are truly stunning to behold.
With all of this only a short drive away your imagination can really go wild and you have the luxury of choosing almost any environment you could want as the theme of your engagement adventure!
Giving your photographer the theme that fits you best in terms of the above will help them work out some location suggestions that would be the best based on what time of year you are planning your session in, so schedule a date night or a realixing coffee morning with your fiancée and chat it over to find the type of location that would suit you best!
Step Three
Decide how much of an “Adventure” you want in your adventure session!
Are you a super outdoorsy couple who would love nothing better than a 10-mile hike up the side of a mountain? Or are you perhaps the kind of couple who love the beauty of nature, but would prefer not have to slave away for hours hiking up a steep path to see it? Does the prospect of a muddy trail excite or frighten you?
Questions like the above will help you guage what type of adventure session will be enjoyable and comfortable for you. For example, there is this amazing place just outside Bend, Oregon called “No Name Lake” which is at the base of Brokentop Mountain. To get there, you would have to hike a little over 5 miles of steep trail, and an adventure engagement session here would probably involve carrying a lunch and a change of clothes in a day pack so that you can be comfortable on the hike up and then can change into a stunning dress or a cute sweater for your portraits at the top. This is a pretty extreme example of an adventure session and such a multi-hour hike might not be enjoyable for everyone.
On the other hand, you have a location such as Rowena Crest in The Columbia River Gorge which has a gorgeous overlook of the Gorge and in the spring has the most beautiful wildflower bloom. Getting to this location is as easy as driving your car up a fairly narrow windy road, parking, and walking about 100 yards to the overlook!
Then there are the in-between type of adventure sessions like going to the Painted Hills, Smith Rock, Mount Rainier or Mirror Lake near Mount Hood which have the option of a short hike to the most beautiful vistas and which would only take an hour or so.
Being honest with yourself and your photographer about how much of an adventure you are desiring and are comfortable with will help you pick the perfect location for your comfort level and will end up in not only gorgeous photos but also a really wonderful experience for you and your partner!
Step Four
Plan fun activities to add to your Adventure Engagement Session Experience!
Have you seen those amazing photos on Pintrest where the couple pop a bottle of champaign and celebrate their engagement shoot with a huge spray of bubbly? Why not add in some fun like that for your adventurous outing?!
Adding in some fun elements such as a pick-nick lunch, enjoying your favorite adult beverage, or even popping into a local cafe for a cup of hot coco to warm up after the first half of your adventure session in the snow not only is fun for you but also intermixes your engagement photos with some candid moments that are really beautiful!
Activities can range from setting up a romantic candle circle for you two to cuddle amid just as the sun finishes dipping below the horizon, to spending the last moments of your coastal engagement adventure splashing in the waves while the ocean covers you up to your waist!
Including a fun activity you are both looking forward to can also take some of the “pressure” off getting your photo taken and is an easy way to get some really fantastic and true personality into your images!
Step Five
Pick out some epic outfits to mirror your epic adventure!
When I am talking to my Kate Holt Photography Couples about their engagement session I always encourage them to choose two outfits- one which is more casual, and one which is a formal outfit that will take that “epic” part of their adventure session to another level.
It is one thing to get an amazing image of the sun sinking into the vast expanse behind you and your partner embracing, and quite another thing to at the same time have the wind whipping the soft fabric of a stunning floor-length dress which makes you absolutely pop off the background!
Nothing separates normal “look what a cool place we went to” photos from “Adventure Engagement Photos” quite like a stunning outfit choice, so go bold with your formal attire! I promise you, you’ll LOVE the look!
(for more specific outfit tips, check out my other blog on what to wear to your engagement session here)
I hope this blog gave you some inspiration to add a little adventure to your engagement session experience!
Adding into your engagement session an epic, gorgeous location and activities you both love will also make it that much more fun for you abs your partner. I certainly count it as a successful session if as we are all done my Kate Holt Photography Groom says “Hey, that was a lot of fun! I wasn’t really expecting that!” Yes! Now that is a successful engagement session experience and something I want for all couples everywhere!
Interested in taking to me about planning your epic engagement adventure?
Drop me a note! I’d love to help you plan something truly amazing!
