Services
Engagement & Couples Photography
An unhurried hour or two somewhere that means something to you — for save-the-dates, for the wall, or simply because you have never had good photographs together.
Most couples have no good photographs of themselves together. Plenty of phone pictures at arm’s length, a few someone else took badly, and nothing that actually looks like what the two of you are like in a room.
An engagement session fixes that in about ninety minutes. You do not need to be getting married to book one — couples book these for anniversaries, for a wall, and for no reason at all — but if you are, it is the single most useful thing you can do before the wedding.
Why it is worth doing before the wedding
Almost nobody is comfortable in front of a camera the first time. On a wedding day that discomfort costs you the first twenty minutes of your portraits, which are also the twenty minutes when you look freshest.
An engagement session gets that out of the way in advance. You find out how we work, we find out how the two of you interact, and by the wedding you are not meeting a stranger with a camera during the most emotional day of your life. It is a rehearsal that happens to produce photographs you will use for save-the-dates, invitations and the guest book.
Where to shoot
The best engagement locations are the ones that mean something — where you met, the street you live on, the bar you always end up in. Failing that, Buffalo has no shortage of good options: open water and big sky at the Outer Harbor, painted brick and storefronts in Elmwood Village and Allentown, tree lines and stone bridges in Delaware Park.
Our guide to Buffalo locations that photograph well breaks down what each spot suits and when to be there. We are happy to shoot two locations in one session if they are close enough together; we plan the route as carefully as the spots.
What it is actually like
Mostly walking and talking. We give direction — where to stand, which way the light is coming from, what to do with your hands — but we are not going to spend ninety minutes arranging you like furniture. The photographs people keep are the ones taken a second after an instruction, when you have stopped concentrating and started laughing at each other.
Bring a coat you like. Bring the dog, if the location allows it. If one of you is dreading this, say so at the start; it is extremely common and it changes how we run the session.
What’s included
- A planning call to choose locations and a time that works with the light
- Guidance on what to wear for both of you, sent beforehand
- An unhurried session, typically 60 to 90 minutes across one or two spots
- Direction throughout, so neither of you has to invent poses
- Every usable frame edited and delivered at high resolution
- Web-sized versions ready for save-the-dates and social
Timing and light
We will almost always suggest the hour before sunset. That hour moves by more than four hours across the year here — late June gives you nearly nine in the evening, late December is dark before five — so the date drives the time more than your calendar does. Our guide to golden hour in Buffalo month by month has the numbers.
Overcast days are not a write-off. Flat, even light is forgiving and removes the deadline entirely, which makes for a more relaxed session.
If you are getting married with us: tell us when you enquire. It is much easier to plan an engagement session that deliberately contrasts with your wedding locations than to discover afterwards that both sets look the same.
Book a session
Tell us roughly when, and whether there is somewhere in particular that matters to you. We will come back with the right time of day for that date and a straight answer on cost — current rates are on the pricing page.
