Feb 19, 2014

Wedding Wednesday: Engagement ShootS

That's right. TWO engagement shoots! Guess who's idea it was, lol.

My sister / MOH, Christine, took our first set of engagement pictures. She has a naturally great eye for photography and has been honing in on her skills so it was a great way for us to take some fun photos for our Save the Dates.

We went with a few locations - Playa Vista, Dockweiler Beach, and a cul-de-sac near St. Bernard's High School. For the first look, we did something somewhat coordinated and casual and for the second, we borrowed our best friend's / Best Man's vintage truck as a prop.

I will say, shooting with props (our dog, Dallas and those giant balloons) were a lot more difficult than anticipated. First of all, Dallas isn't a natural when it comes to the camera. She gets distracted easily and would much rather smell the grass than sit and look pretty. The balloons were a nightmare in of itself because we had limited ways of transporting these 3ft wide balloons. On top of that, there is a HELIUM shortage so we had to purchase a helium tank versus renting one out. Now we have an empty helium tank in our garage.

Working with my sister as a photographer was a lot of fun for me, and we were automatically goofing around. Because of my blog, I'm used to taking shot after shot after shot (of alcohol in addition to photos), but Ryan isn't. So it took a lot of patience on his end as taking these photos took all day. My sister was hilarious because while she's not a professional photographer, per se, she was trying to instruct us on what to do and how to sit and I just kept ignoring her. I love my sister!

PART I:

F21 sweater, Nordstrom faux fur infinity scarf, Willie Smith slacks, Toms wedges

PART II:
United Colors of Benetton top, F21 pants, Charles by Charles David booties, F21 belt
So we ended up using an iteration of this photo for our Save the Dates (that post to come next Wednesday!):

In addition to the pictures that my sister took, when we hired our wedding photographer, Sherri J Photography, part of the package she offered was a free engagement shoot. Even if you don't think you want engagement pictures (we didn't initially since we had the ones my sister took), I still highly recommend it because we were able to get to know one another, she was able to get a sense of Ryan's and my styles, what shots we liked, what our natural body language was like, etc.

Quick review - Sherri was AMAZING to work with! She's based out of Huntington Beach (perfect for Ryan and me since that's where we were getting married), we talked about our style, if we wanted it to be formal or casual, what backdrops we gravitated towards, and we even created a Pinterest board where I could pin pictures that we wanted to emulate. Professionally, she was great with instructing positioning, knowing what angles work best for both Ryan and me, and when to smile, not smile, give each other a kiss, etc. Her prices were definitely reasonable and for our wedding, she even had a 3rd person come to help out with lighting, for free! Post-production-wise, Sherri was able to tame my crazy flyaways, she helped keep the same vivid lighting we had, while keeping the photos looking natural.

We shot our engagement shoot at the Shorebreak Hotel (where our reception was being held) and around downtown HB.

Asos dress, Zara heels, necklace (gift) from Etsy, Hermes bracelet

In case you can't tell - I'm making up for lost time and lack of wedding posts! As always, feel free to AskPhivy for any specific posts.

Next Wednesday: Our Save the Dates and Wedding Invitations!

Questions? AskPhivy!
@hoisinivy

1 comment:

icanhascomments? yes please.