The Build Up | Our Engagement Shoot

It's August - over three months have past since Peter & I had our shoot with our wedding photographers, Justin & Mary. This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while, not only to document us leading up to our wedding, but to also give you all an idea of how to make your own shoot more fun, more visually interesting, and more about you.

I mentioned on here before about the planning that went into our shoot. First up was location. We knew we wanted to do it in Provincetown. We feel very connected to that part of the Cape - and it's also a place that gives us an overwhelming sense of calm every time we go. Just being there makes us slow down and feel more centered.

Next, I began thinking of ways to make the shoot more fun - for us in the moment, and also for the photographs themselves. I came up with this great idea to bring older looking bikes with us to ride around on the shell and sand roads. I pictured flowers in a basket and me wearing a headband with a long tail blowing in the breeze as we road along. Peter listened to my idea and said, "but we don't ride bikes." Right. Too true.

My mind wouldn't drop the idea of 'vehicles for us to ride'. That's when I remembered Peter's 1975 BMW 2002 in NJ. It's in NJ because we don't have room for it in the city, and it needs a bit of work to be put on the road again. That car though, feels like us. We spent many, many hours of our lives driving around backroads in that car, listening to music on a portable radio (the car didn't have one). I miss those days.

So, I decided to see if anyone would let us borrow theirs - knowing the 2002 community is pretty great. I didn't tell Peter until I had succured us a car. A wonderful guy named Rob trusted us with his vehicle and we drove it down to P-town for the shoot.

Mary stepped in with a design board which included a lot of the elements we were already thinking about. We used it as a guide to add in a few more items and voila! We were set to go!

Having the car as a prop definitely helped and gave us a space to play with and around. Bringing things from our home - the portable radio (from my Grandfather's house - which we now use in our bathroom), old thermoses we display in our kitchen (and have been known to use) - dominoes (we love to play dominoes! - let us know if you want to play sometime) - and pastries from our favorite bakery, Clear Flour - also added to the feeling of us that we wanted to bring to the photographs.

We went down to P-town the night before. I woke up quite excited for our shoot! Peter, not so much. He wasn't dreading it by any means, but he wasn't giggling and smiling quite the way I was. I certainly don't mind having my photograph taken, but I found it strange too. I found myself doing and saying the same things my clients say to me. "What do you want me to do?" - "Should I look at you?" - "Smile, or no?" We received great direction from J&M, of course - and as the shoot progressed we became more and more comfortable - and had more and more fun.

Realizing I'm a bit more comfortable around cameras, I've asked Peter to tell you a bit from his perspective:

Even though I've spent a good portion of my life with a photographer, I've never been the biggest fan of having my picture taken. Until recently, I was stuck in the feedback loop of thinking that I look awful in pictures, so then I look totally awkward when my picture is taken, and then I look awful in that picture, etc...

The thing that finally got me out of that loop was our engagement shoot.

At the beginning of the day I was nervous and really aware of the clicking cameras. Then at some point it hit me that this was our engagement shoot.  We were actually going to get married. We were both standing there because we chose each other to spend the rest of our lives with.

As the day went on, I felt more and more relaxed. I remembered that the person next to me is the person that I'm most comfortable with. The shoot was just a period of time with nothing to do but be there with each other.

My nervousness didn't magically go away all at once, of course, but whenever I started to feel the awkwardness coming on, I took a deep breath and really looked at Lara and thought, "this is the person I'm going to marry."

These are just a few of the images, which we love, that J&M took. You can see more (if you'd like) on their blog.

 

Keeping all of this in mind - I have an enagement shoot coming up on the blog later this week where the couple went above and beyond to make their shoot more personal. The result of their planning - are some fantastic looking photographs with a bunch of personality!