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Our Engagement photos are pictures that we will cherish forever!Now, when I say engagement photos I’m not talking about to the cute, Insta-worthy pictures you take the second you get engaged that you use to share with your friends and family on social media about your special moment!

I’m talking about hiring a photographer, getting all dolled up, and taking professional quality pictures with you and your fiancé that you’ll be able to keep forever!

The good news is, when planning a wedding you’re going to need a photographer. Most photographers offer a package that either includes an engagement session in their price, or they get a discounted rate to couples that have already booked them to take pictures of the big day!

You might be thinking “I don’t really need engagement pictures done, I can just use my cell phone to get some cute pictures and use those as my  ‘engagement photos'”.

Well, to you, I would say here are five reasons why you should have an engagement photography session:

1: You Will Have Excellent Pictures You Can Admire Forever

I have definitely seen and taken some great pictures using my cell phone’s camera! There are also some great editing apps that you can download to filter your pictures and make them look a little “above average”.

But nothing beats a professional photographer being able to snap some great pictures of you and your fiancé and the love you share for each other! A great photographer is going to sit back and let you guys be you, and just snap pictures while you’re walking, you’re laughing, you’re talking, anything like being able to snap some great pictures of you and your fiancé and the love you share for each other!

A photographer is also going to sit back and let you guys be you, and just snap pictures while you’re walking, laughing, or talking. These make for such cute pictures! And the fact that they are so well done will make you want to print them and be able to display them in your future house!

I printed out all of the engagement photos of my fiancé and I, and used a photo album that was given to me at our engagement party to put them all in! Now we’ll be able to display that photo album and when people look through it they’ll be able to see the pictures of us from our engagement!

Our photographer (Lucky for us my mother is a photographer so she was able to do our session for us) did such an amazing job of capturing Tuan Anh and I in our element, which is basically being goofy and silly and cracking up at each other!

While the staged and smiling pictures are fabulous, my personal favorites are the ones of us just laughing and having a conversation, because that’s us!

This is a cute staged one that I think turned out great:

And then one of use just laughing and enjoying ourselves together:

2: Use Them For Your Save The Date Cards

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We are using our engagement photos for our save the date card! It’s a great way for us to reuse some of our favorite pictures of us and share them with our friends and family! This makes the save the date card a little more personal and you’re likely to know that people aren’t just going to throw them in the trash! Like my grandma is probably going to hang it on her fridge because it not only our save the date card, but it also has beautiful pictures of her granddaughter and future grandson-in-law.

Plus beautiful pictures of the happy couple are sure to make your guest smile, and also get them hyped up for your wedding! (Which is kinda the point of a save-the-date right?)

3: Use Them For Decorations At Wedding Related Events (i.e. showers, parties, or even the wedding itself)

Another thing about them, since they are so beautiful, you can print them out for fairly cheap, frame them up in some beautiful picture frames you found at either the antique store or Goodwill, and use them to decorate any venue you need to!

If you need something to go by the guest sign in table, why not a photo from your engagement session? Or maybe you need more decorations at your shower, these photos make for the perfect decoration, as well as a conversation piece for guests that may not know each other!

4: Creativity

This is one thing that I found was really helpful! Sure, I can look at a picture and think that it looks great, but I don’t know how to make us look like that picture, you know to mean?  So it’s great to have someone who is not only going to take amazing photos, but also knows how to get you into the poses that you’re looking for.

On top of that, you may not even know what pose you want you and your fiancé to be in. So again a professional photographer is going to be great at giving ideas of what he or she thinks looks great in photos based off of their experience.

5: Because It Is A Blast!

Last but not least, it’s just truly so much fun to get engagement photos done! I got to search for the perfect outfits for us to wear. The day of I got to do myself up: curl my hair do my make up, get my nails ready all that jazz!

I also got to pick out a handsome outfit for my handsome man that made him look quite dapper, if I do say so myself!

Also, choosing the right location for the message you want to send is so fun and important! If you want to get guests ready for a barn wedding, why not use a cool, picturesque old barn as the backdrop for your photos!

We are having a spring wedding, and we want it to just scream us! Which is why we chose a beautiful botanical garden and pond as our back ground, and then just acted like us! It was a great experience, as we basically got to be ourselves, laugh with each other and just take a break from the real world and to be able to focus on just each other for that time of the photo session!

The only thing I would suggest, is being sensitive to what the weather may be like!

We took our engagement pictures in the middle of August, in the middle of Georgia! If you know anything about Georgia in the middle of August it is hot! And even though we waited until seven to have our photos done it was still so hot that we were sweating like crazy! (Luckily that did not come across in our photos though!)

I hope this post convinced you to go out, and hire a photographer for an engagement session, because I promise your wont regret it (unless you don’t pick out a good photographer that is)! Just be diligent in your search for the perfect photographer! Look them up, look at their examples and if you like their work, chances are you will like them too!

Most of all just be yourselves! Your photos are sure to turn out absolutely stunning if you are just true to yourselves, and let the love you and your fiancé share shine through the lens!

If you have just gotten engaged and need to know a few steps to take, then be sure to check out my post about that!

Or if you are still looking to plan your engagement party, click here for Everything you need to know about Engagement Parties, AND some good themes to consider for your party!

**** All images unless otherwise credited are my own images, and it would not be cool for you to steal them:) thanks!