Family member do engagement pics?

Personally I wanted to do an engagement photoshoot as a trial run with my photographer. Doing it with someone else kinda defeats the point from my standpoint. I would talk to your photographer to see how much they would be. I would pay your uncle for doing it, I wouldn't expect him to do it for free. But if you are going to be paying someone why not just do it with your wedding photographer.

My FW's best friend is doing ours, kind of as a wedding present. We never offered him a payment or anything...

And my FW's best friends girlfriend is doing our photos, she's a professional, and lives about 2 hours away from us, and won't be able to do our engagements

My sister did our engagement pictures for free and they turned out amazing. everyone asked if they were by the photographer we hired for the wedding.if you are unsure how he'd fell, just ask. i would offer to pay, and see what he says.

Yeah the photos will be an extra 400 and I don't want a lot of pictures just a couple nice shots of us together to display at home and use for save the dates.

We asked my little cousin to take our engagement photos, he was 15 at the time and has an amazing talent for photography. We let him chose the locations, took him out to lunch and flipped him $200 that he put toward an even better camera. We were very happy with how things turned out.

My brother did ours so we had them for the STDs and at the time we hadn't picked our photographer yet. They turned out great! We didn't pay him but I did buy him a little gift to say thanks. He's going to take the pictures at my shower too and for that I'm paying him a small fee to do it. Just to help him out because he's still in school and only has a PT job at the moment.

If you'd like him to take the pictures, I see no reason not to ask

Its much better to do your e-pics with your photographer, so that you can get used to their style, get comfortable in front of the camera, and still have time to find a new photographer, just in case you aren't happy with something!

As long as you feel comfortable, I don't see a problem. I would definitely give him a tip or something sweet to say thank you

No reason not to ask - but you should compensate him, absolutely! Two reasons: If he's a professional photographer who does weddings, then you're taking a paying gig from him by booking him for a time that he'd otherwise book a paying couple, and second, he still has to edit them and deliver them, and when you are paying him it takes all the awkwardness out of agreeing to a date that he'll have them returned to you - it's a normal contract.

You should agree up front how long the session will be, and then ask him to quote you how much for his time, and if he says "it's free" take him out to a nice meal and give him a gift card for a professional photography supply store for $50, or a gift card and a bottle of wine as a token thanks for his time and work. If you were going to have to pay $400, I think getting in the $100 ballpark would be where I'd want to be - that's still a 75% discount!

IMO it's a mistake not to hire the same photographer doing your wedding to do your engagement photos. Mainly for consistency of style and that you form a working bond together. Part of the reason for doing engagement photos. You never did say what area of photography your uncle does. That would be a deciding factor.

Thanks everyone. He is professional in that he sells a lot of his pictures of flowers,buildings , etc. but also colors and does a lot of artistic work as well. I asked him so hopefully he doesn't mind helping us out

My sister did ours. But we are super close so it wasn't weird at all. She is a BM. We didn't pay her but we took her and her husband to a really nice dinner to say thank you.

she might also do a boudoir shoot for me.