Planning your Engagement Photo – Part 3 – What to wear

You’ve got the ring (Congratulations!) and you’ve settled on an engagement photographer for your engagement portraits (wink wink) and now you’re wondering what to do next.

There’s a few things to do to prepare yourself for your engagement portraits.

Determine the best location for your engagement portraits.
Determine the best day & time for your engagement portraits.
Determine what to wear for your engagement portraits.
Determine what to bring with you for your engagement portraits.

Today’s blog is part 3 of 4 in an engagement portrait photography to do list.

You’ve already read my post about choosing a location and the day and time. If not, STOP! click the links above.

Great, now that we are all refreshed let’s get started.

You know where and when you will be doing your engagement photography session. Now what to wear, what to wear? Let’s start with the basics, color.

Color

First and foremost, DO NOT under any circumstances wear the exact same thing. Gone are the days of matching white button up shirts and jeans. The key word is coordinate, not duplicate.

Consider your location and the color of the location during your portrait session. Choose to wear complementary colors (which will stand out the most with your surroundings), or you can choose the color before or after on the color wheel.

for example, If you are taking your engagement photos outside in a forest like area in the middle of summer, expect everything to be green and brown. Don’t wear green or brown. You could wear pinks or purples which are complementary colors to green (using the color wheel below, find the green and move directly across, that is your complementary color). You could even get away with a color that is 2 colors away on the wheel, like a blue or yellow.

Dress for the temperature

Consider the time of year you are taking your portraits. Will the weather be cold or hot? Dress appropriately for your Engagement portraits. We, as engagement photographers, don’t want anyone collapsing from heat exhaustion or shivering in all of your photos because you didn’t put enough layers on. You need to feel comfortable. If you feel comfortable, you will look it… unless you are a professional model.

Patterns

I defiantly suggest one person in your party wear a pattern of some kind while the other wear a solid color or a very feint pattern. If both people are wearing patterns, it confuses your eye and makes looking at the image hard. If both people are wearing solid colors, it dulls the image. The only time you can get away with both wearing solid colors is if one person is wearing multiple colors (ie a mustard scarf with a blue top and brown boots). In this case, I would suggest the other person pick a color from the same pallet, like a black top and blue pants.

Rent the outfit

If you have something specific in mind, but don’t have the actual outfit, or the money to buy it, you can check out websites like Rent the Runway. There you can find the perfect outfit, or two to borrow. Once you’ve taken your engagement photos, you can return the outfit. Make sure to let the photographer know your outfit is rented. Be mindful of sitting in the grass and climbing in trees. You don’t want to have to buy the outfit if you ruin it.

Did this help? I hope so. Stay tuned for the next installment of the Engagement portrait session list.