Engagement photos are the new selfie,
Like the trend or not, engagement photos in your news feed are here to stay
In February, the Albany Times Union conducted a reader survey asking whether couples had opted or would opt for engagement photos, a session of professional images commemorating a successful recent betrothal (and, of course, a big ol’ ring). The options ranged from “yes, and I love having the photos” to no, “I don’t want to add an extra cost to our budget.” While a large portion of respondents — 36% — indicated that they had or would have the photos done, they were outnumbered by naysayers; of particular note is the 43% who said that, no, engagement sessions aren’t worth it, because “people always look so silly in those photos.”
You can imagine what they mean, because you’ve seen them. Sometimes they’re themed — a romantic autumn romp through a pumpkin patch, say, or some kind of nautical romance thing — and sometimes they’re destination shoots, but more often, they’re merely a set of photos communicating a clear message: we’re going to get married, and we have the pictures to prove it.
In this, the golden age of social media sharing and oversharing, the engagement photo seems to be the latest, hottest, most ubiquitous nuptial trend. It makes sense — engagements, like weddings, pregnancies and births, are milestones, and so much of digital media is conducive to image-based commemoration of these milestones or, as Facebook calls them, “life events.” But if engagement photos do raise some ire — and they absolutely do: An essay titled “I Hate Your Engagement Photos” circulated widely last week and, on Tuesday, The Toast published a nine-point parody guideline — it’s probably because we’re just not used to seeing them.
After all, engagement photos aren’t new: Your parents may have had a set taken to print in the newspaper alongside an announcement of their upcoming nuptials, or to include when they mailed their save-the-dates. What is new is seeing them when we don’t want to, when they’re of people we don’t know, and every time we go online.
“It’s nice to have those kind of pictures. I really wanted to do it,” says Jacob Johnston, 27. “But maybe it is just a money grab for people in the wedding industry,”
In August 2014, Johnston, 27, proposed to his girlfriend, Ashli Cormier, on a beach in Tofino, B.C., with a photographer in tow. The photographer and groom-to-be had met in advance, and Johnston arranged for the shutterbug to be hidden from sight when he popped the question, the idea being that he and Cormier would end up with, as Cormier said over the phone last week, images that “really are true engagement photos.”
It worked out — Cormier, 25, said yes, the photographer came out of hiding, and the couple ended up with a series of images that are half-candid, half-posed but all evocative of a very particular, special block of time on the beach. “Every time I look at them it brings back a lot of emotion,” Cormier says. “But for a lot of other people, it’s more planned.”
Capturing spontaneity in this way — or making a private moment public for the sake of crafting an even stronger memory or, at least, a good story — is a risk, but in the digital sphere, it works either way: if your moment goes well, you’ve got images that capture it. If it doesn’t, you’ve got potential virality on your hands, provided you’re comfortable with sharing a personal letdown with the world (trust me, the world wants to see it).
And in the case of engagement photos, it’s also a way to creatively distinguish your shot: Joe Conforzi, who recently got engaged while on vacation in Seattle, announced the betrothal with a photo of he and his fiancee’s hands holding Starbucks coffee cups marked “Mr.” and “Mrs.,” with her new diamond ring on full display, which he posted to Instagram and Facebook. It is likely, he says, to remain their sole engagement photo; they’re not, he explains, into tradition, noting that they’re not planning a seated dinner, either.
The suggestion here is that engagement photography — of the sit-down, staged variety — has already been relegated to the annals of convention, perhaps alongside bouquet-tossing and speech-giving. Couples, Vancouver wedding photographer Kristy Ryan says, work hard to distinguish their photos in the same way that they might work to distinguish their ceremonies. The end result is a set of photos with an old-school sort of permanence: not better than the ones that exist just online, but different.
“With social media and in- spiration online, engagement shoots have also become more elaborate,” Ryan said in an email, adding that engagement photo sessions have the built-in perk of familiarizing couples with their photographer, making things easier on the big day. “In recent years doing ‘styled’ engagement shoots has been popular. This is where (the couple works) with the photographer and plans a theme for the engagement shoot, often with props. For example, for one engagement we covered a rowboat with over 100 flowers and hung flower-adorned chandeliers in trees and brought vintage sofas in the woods.”
But even here, the exception is likely to become the rule: “Previously, people were happy to go to their local park or beach,” Ryan continues, noting that in the past two years she’s shot engagement sessions in Bali, Italy, Jamaica, California and Paris. “Now, people are thinking bigger and outside the box.”
Documenting an engagment doesn’t have to be so elaborate — or expensive, and capturing this moment is no more narcissistic than a commissioning a wedding photo. Decades ago we might have bought some real estate in a newspaper to announce a birth, death or engagement; now, we personalize our announcements and post them online whenever and however we want. And if they get on your nerves, take heed: Five years ago, we all railed against the sudden popularity of amateur food photography. Now, it’s just another thing to scroll idly past while waiting for the bus.