I must admit, I really love our engagement photos. I am oh so thankful my fiancé agreed to take them a few weeks after we got engaged and I could not be happier with how they turned out. London lockdown was just starting to ease at the end of June but a Sunday morning, starting at 7am? We were able to have some of the most iconic London spots nearly to ourselves including the famous landmarks of Tower Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral.
If you follow me on social media, and in particular watch my Instagram stories, you will know Mark HATES photos. Knowing this I did quite a bit of research on engagement photos because overly posed photos were just not going to fly. In typical fashion I brought an outfit change and while Mark stayed in the same clothes I like the variety it offered in the photos. Our photographer, Desiree, made us feel instantly at ease and we had a great experience shooting with her – I would not hesitate to recommend her, Desiree A. North Photography. While getting ready for the photos one of Mark’s questions was what are we going to do with these photos? And while I had a few ideas more and more have been coming to me over the past two months so I wanted to share!
1 | Save the Dates One of the most popular reasons to have engagement photos taken is to feature them on your save the date card. We ended up using two, one on the front and one on the back on the cards I designed with Minted, take a look:
2 | Wedding Website We have one on the homepage and a few of the photos in the collage page chronicling our relationship – since they are so well done it’s a nice contrast to the iPhone selfies we have from rugby matches
3 | As Gifts Parents and grandparents are likely over the moon that you are getting married, at least mine are (and Snapfish just emailed me that September 13th is National Grandparents Day). Print them out, frame them, and you have at least part of birthdays and Christmas sorted.
4 | Social Media Perhaps it is just me but I am so excited I found my dream guy and I want to shout it from the rooftops. And the 2020 version of that is lots of social media pots. I have already shared a few (here and here) but as the countdown keeps going – we are 247 days out as of today – I will surely be sharing more!
5 | In Your House. I have framed three of my favourites in a silver tryptic that is hanging in our kitchen right above our light switch and I smile when I see them. I may also frame one for my desk soon too, simply because I like them so much!
6 | Photo Montage I have been to quite a few rehearsal dinners that have featured a photo montage of the couple and while it usually focuses on earlier photos of the bride and groom there are cute to include in a slideshow if you are going to have one playing!
All in all we got more than 100 back from our shoot and after going through them with Mark, here are some of our combined favourites:
. And in case you are planning a wedding and need more ideas there are few other ways to use your engagement photos that aren’t quite for me but I am listing them in case they will work for you:
7 | Invitations. Some couples skip the save the date or for those who want a more casual invite you can feature your engagement photos on their wedding invitations.
8 | On the Big Dy I have seen cute options using engagement photos as table numbers or as part of the guest book. I have even seen some photos on Pinterest of people blowing them up into large prints and lining the wall of their venues or featuring them on their cake!
9 | Party Favors As of right now we may be skipping gifts for the guests but I have seen engagement photos on nearly everything imaginable – from keychains and t-shirts to coffee mugs and bubbles that people have given their loved ones to take home and remember their special day. Personally, I know my guests are excited to celebrate with us but I do not think they want a copy of our faces to wear or carry around.
10 | Holiday Card A I do not think Mark and I will be sending out holiday cards this year but once we are married, it is a tradition I would like to start, likely with one from our wedding!
If you have gotten married recently or come across any cute ideas I’d love for you to share them in the comments!
Playing with Natural Light in the Park
Humans of New York
Sustainable Fashion in a Black Sequin Dress
Past Adventures: Santorini
Franicine says
Sending this to a few friends who are getting engaged soon, at least I hope so and I think I will offer to pay for the engagement photo shoot and what a great gift that will be. Then they can see how many things they can do with them.
One other thought? Your new couple Christmas card if you don’t use it as the save the date card.
Congrats again on the engagement.
Lauren says
Sooooooo gorgeous Kelly!
In my culture it’s weird to not include an engagement picture with your wedding invitation.
We also put our engagement photos in frames on the tables at the wedding. We also room bridal photos together a few weeks before the wedding so we had those displayed as well.
My favorite thing I did at my wedding was instead of a guest book we blew up on of our bridal shots and put it in a big frame with lots of matting. Then people signed the matting on the frame instead of a guest book! We have a photo wall in our apartment and all the pics surround that signed frame.
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Betsy says
So hard for me to choose the one that I like the best but I think it is the one of you dancing on the bridge.
Looks like you two could be in a movie and how cool that there was nobody around when you had the photos taken. Can’t imagine that usually no one is on the bridge or on that road to St. Peter’s Cathedral.
Very cool.
Nancy says
Clearly I follow you on Instagram and your blog and I’ve seen several of these pictures but not them all. Love all the different outfits and all the different backgrounds. You both look really happy and congratulations again. Never really gave it much thought to what you would do with a Engagment photos but you certainly came up with a huge list. Great photos.
Lana says
You both look so happy. I never knew there were so many ways to use engagement photos but you are very creative.