Pic or It Didn’t Happen: Engagement Edition

We got our engagement photos back last week and I literally screamed out loud when I saw them. Our photographer, Santiago Murillo, absolutely killed it. Dillon and I feel so lucky to have these as a way to remember such a fun time in our lives. I put way too much thought into them beforehand (surprise surprise), so coming out of it I feel like I have a lot of helpful tips to share with you guys! Almost all positive, but also a few things I may have done differently on my end if I were to do it over again. I like to let you all learn from my mistakes *there’s never a shortage of them* *you’re welcome*. Also, because we are so thrilled with our choice of photographer, I wanted to point out some things to keep in mind when choosing yours! After putting such a crazy amount of time, effort and money into your wedding, it’s important to remember that the photos are one of the only things that will last beyond that day. You want to be sure that you will love them!

First, let’s talk about choosing your photographer. If you follow along with my Instagram stories, some of this may feel like deja-vu from a couple of months ago, but I get asked about it often enough to where I felt we should get back into it!

Going into wedding planning, I knew that the venue and photographer were going to be the two decisions I really put a lot of weight on. Having a background in photography means that I pay attention to details in photos that many brides might not care about quite as much. I don’t claim to be a professional photographer, when people ask these days I like to say “I’m a designer with a nice camera”. Meaning- I really, really appreciate quality photos and love to use photography as an aid to my graphic design work and blogging. However, I appreciate the craft enough to know that I don’t have the same passion, skillset and relationship with my camera that the pros do. It’s not really something that I see myself ever fully pursuing (by choice), I think it’s healthy to have some hobbies that stay hobbies!

However, for a few years I did dabble in freelance photography- capturing family, engagement, and maternity photos as a side gig. I even shot a few weddings (It’s even harder than it looks, guys!). Because of this, I feel like I had a unique position in choosing our photographer. I have enough insight to be really picky, but also get SO excited to see work from the ones I do think are phenomenally talented.

Dillon and I sat down one night and made a list of all of the things we wanted in a photographer. While doing so, I brought up examples of wedding photos on blogs like Style Me Pretty and Junebug Weddings to get his opinion. There’s a good chance that between you and your fiancé, one or both of you may not be well-versed in photo terminology… and that’s totally fine! Just be sure to do your research and get together a list of whatever words come to mind when seeing photos you do love.

Our list:
• Bold, rich, warm colors
• A little moody feeling with a lot of contrast
• A style that feels timeless (not too trendy)
• Not too many posed photos, more candids
• Has shot a wedding in a similar venue
• Captures moments that show the fun stuff
• Has an obvious passion for photography
• Gets the decor details
• Is down to earth and makes you feel comfortable
• Seems interested in getting to know us and our wedding plans

Some of these points are hard to gauge until you reach out to the person, so the easiest way to start your elimination process is by establishing a budget. You guys know that I am ALL for a good deal, I spend a good chunk of my life wandering thrift stores. That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that when it comes to photography, (to a certain extent) you get what you pay for. I’ve been the one behind my laptop weeding through thousands of photos taken from a wedding and spending the obnoxious amount of hours it takes to edit them all. It’s not an easy job, and the creatives out there pursuing their talents and putting the work in deserve to be compensated accordingly. Obviously stay within your means, but my advice is to try and set aside a decent amount of your budget to have keepsakes that you fall in love with.

Once you’ve made your list and set your budget, next: RESEARCH! That’s probably my number one tip in all of wedding planning. Do your research. Then, look some more. Then, sleep on it. Then, look again. The wedding community is so saturated these days, it’s honestly exhausting how many options you have. My advice for looking at photographers is to avoid relying strictly on Instagram. While it’s super convenient and a great marketing tool for vendors, it’s hard to judge a photographer solely on their feed that fits to your tiny screen. It’s fine to find a photographer on instagram (tip: use hashtags. Like the state you’re in #WisconsinWeddings or a larger city near you #MilwaukeeWeddings), but after finding them- head to their websites to look for more photos! Another great tool is the wedding vendor lookup on The Knot. Once you decide you want to reach out, make sure to ask if you can have access to a couples’ real wedding gallery. By seeing photos from the whole day vs. just the highlights, you can get a rough idea of how many photos to expect, what types of moments your photographer will capture, and how they handle certain lighting and weather conditions.

Lastly, if you live close to the city where you are looking for photographers, one hundred points in my book if the photographer asks to meet face to face! I think meeting someone in person is so important in deciding whether or not you click (remember you’ll be spending 8+ hours with this person on the best day of your life). One of the first comments Santiago made after reaching out to him was that he would love to meet us for coffee! It was refreshing after not hearing this from any of the other photographers I had contacted. Once we met up with him and realized what an awesome dude he was (his photos already spoke for themselves), we knew he was our guy! If your photographer isn’t close enough to meet with, a FaceTime call would be a great idea also. Take time beforehand to come up with a list of questions or concerns you have for your wedding day. The answers to those questions will be a huge help in finalizing your decision!

Now that you found your photographer (biggest relief!) it’s time to start planning your engagement shoot. The things I wanted from our session were: Real and candid, while still being slightly stylized. I also wanted a lot of color, with keeping a romantic feel.  I had dreams of florals, flowing dresses, and pretty scenery. One thing that I did ahead of time was make a vision board. When going back and forth with Santiago about where and when to do our shoot, I sent him the board below and he suggested a state park he loved to shoot at because it had dreamy landscapes. Communicating your vision to your photographer is important! This is another thing I’ve learned from doing a good deal of shoots myself: photographers are not mind readers. If you don’t tell them what you want, you can’t be disappointed when they don’t deliver. It was SO fun to see Santiago’s talents go to work to take what I had in mind and bring it even ten steps further. Spending time in a cubicle 9-5, doing freelance design work and working on this blog alone means that I rarely collaborate with fellow creatives anymore. Being surrounded by so many talented people who are genuinely interested in your vision has been the most fun part of wedding planning for me.

To keep this simple- I’m going to list the 3 things that helped me most in prepping for our shoot and the 3 things I would do over:

DO

1. Have a vision! You don’t need a theme or anything crazy, just know what you are looking to get out of the shoot. Do you love your hometown? Shoot at your favorite date night spots. Did you meet in college? Why not head back to campus! Are you like me and have a lot of example photos of things you love, but no clue where to execute it? Ask your photographer. They have most likely done TONS of engagement sessions and will hopefully be able to think of a location they love that will complete your vision. Don’t forget to style your wardrobe to match the location. Your clothing will be a huge part of the vibe your photos give off.
2. If you have insecurities that you know will bother you in photos, try to take care of them beforehand. Like I said, your photographer is not a mind reader! While editing your photos, they are just thinking you look great… they’re not zooming in on your eyebrows that you subconsciously wish you had gotten waxed before the shoot. You can’t expect them to do anything about those tiny details, that part is on you. For example, I know I personally feel my best when I’m a little bronzed and like the way my smile looks. So in the weeks leading up to the shoot, I made sure to work on my tan and bought some whitening strips. The little things like that honestly will not make a huge difference at all in how other people see your photos, but they will make YOU feel better about them. And that’s the important thing, right?
3.  Bring “props”! I struggle to use the word prop, because in my portrait photography days I would sometimes dread when people told me they were “bringing props”. I think the key is distinguishing the cheesy from the complimentary. Think of the vibe you want from your shoot, and then think of items that would add to that. I wanted our photos to feel romantic, fun, and colorful. I brought two floral bouquets (one for each outfit) because I thought they would add to the romantic feel. They were super inexpensive because I made them myself using flowers from my moms garden and a few add-on’s from the grocery store *ya’ll know I had to throw a DIY in there*. I also brought a bright blanket we had at home to add color and some bottles of champagne for fun shots.

DON’T

1. Try not to stray too far away from your normal hair and makeup routine. I went to get my makeup done before the shoot, and looking back I wish I had either done a trial run beforehand or just done it myself. Not that it ended up terrible, I just didn’t completely feel like myself. Also, if I had left more time between my appointment and the time we had to leave for our session, I could have asked for some things to be altered, but I didn’t leave myself that time so I was rushing out of the salon.
2. Don’t wait until the last minute to plan your wardrobe. I had gone shopping for weeks leading up to the shoot and struck out every time. Then, less than a week before, I panic ordered a crazy amount of clothes online and still didn’t like a ton of the stuff I ordered. Luckily, I ended up with two outfits for each of us that worked, but I honestly created much more stress around it than I needed to. The purple dress I’m wearing was way too big and came in the mail two days before the shoot, so I went to my mom’s house and said “HELP”. She worked some wonders, but like I said, much more chaotic than it should have been.
3. Don’t get in your own head! I think as women we are SO hard on ourselves and the way we photograph. Dillon always looks so natural in photos because his attitude is pretty much “this is what I look like, take it or leave it” whereas I’m fixing and critiquing myself between every pic. Looking natural is the best thing you can do in photos, so just own it! Have fun, laugh with your fiancé, and bringing champagne isn’t a bad idea!

Thanks so much for following along! It seems like the photos in this post are never ending, but it’s actually just a small sample of the whole session. We were given SO many beautiful photos, you can check out all 200+ of them here.

As I’ve mentioned, we could not be happier with our wedding photographer. Credit to all of the photos in this post goes to Santiago Murillo. You can check out his website here and instagram here.

Send me an email or a message on insta if you have any other wedding photography or engagement photo questions. I’ve been doing my best to document our planning along the way, but if there’s a specific topic that you’re curious to hear more about please let me know! I love to hear from you guys! #347GetsHitched

Xo Amanda