Engagement Pics...What's the point?

Big reason, you need to know how well you get along with your photographer, If your styles/personalities clash, it hurts the process sometimes and takes some fun out of the wedding process. You'll be spending quite a few hours with the person on your big day. You can send them with your save the dates as well. We did ours as a test run for our photographer, found out we work well together (love her!) and we made our save the dates with them. Some couples want professional pics together too....

Also we had ours done close after the engagement..so it serves to kinda have that phase in our relationship captured in the pics. Also people use them for announcements in the newspaper too..Also they can be used to display at the wedding.

I agree with @Mrs. Clark. We had our engagement photos taken by a photographer with a studio and we did NOT click at all. So doing the engagement shoot was very important to get to know our photographer.

Further, many people like to chronical their lives with photos so taking engagement photos is a great way to celebrate the engagement.

If its something you want to do, but not in your budget, you can often find photographers who include the engagement shoot in their packages. Mine does but she allowed me to opt out and just do the one shoot to get to know her. After that experience, I had full confidence she was the one for us

I thought the same thing at first. An e session was actually part of a package with our photographer. I had negotiated extra hours, etc. in place of the e session. But then I saw their blog and saw how cute all of the other couples' e-pics were......so we ended up doing an e-session! lol It was great! As STB Mrs. Clark said, you get the feel of working with your photographer(s) and I think that's the biggest pro for doing them. Plus, we got some really great shots! We can use those in a guest book, for other things at the wedding. I think it's totally worth it!

I wouldnt pay EXTRA for engagement pics. Mine happend to come with my package. Otherwise we would not have done them either. But basically people get them done just to have professional "couples" pics to be able to do things like put their photo on the Save The Date or engagement and wedding annoucements. Put them on the Wedding Wire website...etc. If you have a good camera and some good scenery...yes you really could just take the photos yourself for FREE. LOL

Mines came with our package, that was the only reason we did them otherwise we wouldn't have any or we would've had a friend took them. A friend of ours actually just asked to take some more for us if we want to, so that won't cost us a thing.

Most people do them so they can use on their invites, stds and display at the shower and reception, some people do them because they've never had any decent pics of the two of them in their relationships and having them done is a great way for them to start taking pics together. Also what Soon to be stated (if you're using your wedding photographer).

We had engagement photos done in a studio and I hated the experience. The photog was a whacko but I'm using one of the pics on my STD. I think i was just excited and wanted to do something wedding related lol. We also put that pic in the newspaper. Looking back, i prob wouldn't have done those but it is nice to have professional pics of us.

However, our photog includes an engagement session in our package so he can get to know us and we can feel comfortable with him on our wedding day.

I used them to get to know my photog, for my wedding invites and for the photo guest book I had made.

We have decorated most of our house with our engagement pictures, I think they are great.

We got ours done because it was the first time we had professional pics of us made. Often we try to get friends to take pics of us, and they always came out kind of bad... We love the ones we had done.

We used ours for newspaper announcements in our hometowns in addition to on our thank yous from vistaprint. Turned out really cute.

My mother insisted we have a photo of us at the guest book table due to the fact that last year she was attending the wedding of a good friend of ours, they were running late, had to wait in a line to park, hike across a dirt lot, wait in line again to enter the wedding, (a 30 min process!) and when they finally got to the guest book/welcome table they saw the photo on the table was not of our friends. Their wedding was across the street! Turns out many of the guests that went to the wrong wedding.
We are also doing a photo guest book so we needed to do them, otherwise we probably would have saved the money.

Ours were mainlly to celebrate that stage in our relationship we got an awesome deal on them aswell so that helped a lot and I love the idea of having them on the STD's plus FH hates his pic taken so we dont have a ton of pics together so it was a good excuse to finally be able to display pics together other then self taken shots

We will be getting them done for free! My FH purchased my engagement ring from a store that has a deal with a photographer. We get the photo session and one 8x10 for free. If the pictures are terrible, all we wasted was our time. If they are fabulous, we got very lucky. We can decide to purchase the photos once we are done with the shoot. Additionally, my Future MIL loves to take photos. So we will do a photo shoot with her as well. I am really excited to get professional pictures of the two of us! Can't wait to post them on FB and on here....especially since I still have the generic icon for my name.

We also had them done for free - plan to use them on the STD, around the wedding and I am sure my MOH will incorporate them into the decor for the shower.

I also will use them on our wedding website.

However, if you don't want them, there is no real need. In the days of digital cameras most of us have pleanty o' pics of us and our FS - engagement photos are more formal, but again - no real need.

There's a ton of great reasons to take engagement photos!

The most obvious one - You get to use them for just about anything (Save the Dates, holiday cards, actual invitations, thank you notes, guest sign-in books, displays at your ceremony or reception, social media profile pics, etc.). Another fun thing I recommend my couples is to use them as gifts for your parents. Parents always love those!

Other than that, there is seriously no better way to get to know the photographer that will be with you more than anybody else on your wedding day. You get to know how they shoot and they get to know you better as a couple.

I actually wrote about this topic on my blog. You should go check it out!

http://andrearodriguezphoto.com/2017/10/should-i-take-engagement-photos/

We didn't use them for invites or anything but we wanted them so we could have these professional pictures for us. You wont exactly look like your every day self in your wedding photos, but your engagement photos can show more of who you are as a couple. It can be less formal and more fun. Then you get to have beautiful photos of that special time in your life.

I mean, how often do you get professional photos taken?? And you'll never be younger than you are now. haha