Over the past few years we’ve photographed numerous engagement sessions all over the country. Some have embodied our clients lives such as the locations where they got engaged, their first date locations, places where they spend all their free time or simply beautiful parks they fancy. Our engagement sessions have varied from graffiti walls in Brooklyn, to skylines in LA and Hoboken, to monuments in DC and locations we had to sneak into and thus cannot name (who said the military wouldn’t pay off?)
So when it came to our very own engagement session, after doing hundreds of other amazing couples engagement sessions. We wanted something different, something unique yet something timeless that we could place on our walls for years to come.
Since we barely had more than a handful of photographs of the two of us in traditional Indian outfits we thought it would be unique and fun to start the shoot with that and then change into something with a modern fashion flair. We wanted clothing choices as well as locations that told a story that embodied our love for each other, the romance we felt in our hearts but also our playful and fun nature.
In preparation for our shoot in Nashville, TN we scouted out locations (albeit virtually) that would be ideal for us. We researched urban locations, parks, historic sights, honky tonks (I was vetoed) and various other possible locations. After much searching we realized that we wanted a natural setting so a field with large trees and overgrown grass was something we had in mind. Our wedding photographers were able to find an amazing field where we started the session. Since we knew we would be wearing Indian clothes we thought that the natural contrast between the bright colors in our clothes against the natural woodland settings would look beautiful.
We also knew we wanted to incorporate water; since I (Sunny) can’t swim and Neeva is afraid of waves above her ankles we weren’t sure why we wanted to incorporate water but we thought it would be unique and fun; plus it is completely different from DC. With some research we discovered a beautiful marina in Nashville with plenty of surrounding natural grounds for us to utilize. We were able to use two different piers and a bank right near the water’s edge.
Once we had our locations picked, the next step was to find our clothes and make sure we looked our best! Our tips and tricks for engagement session can be found here.
But specifically Neeva made sure she had:
- A unique dress with complementing cute shoes
- Jewelry that matched her clothes
- Her hair dyed and treated about a week before the shoot
- A manicure and pedicure about two days before the shoot
- A hair and makeup artist come help her get ready the day of the shoot
I (Sunny) made sure:
- We both had unique elements for our shoot from hats, suspenders to the perfect pair of shoes
- Our clothes were ironed and pressed for our shoot
- We were on-time
We both made sure to:
- Have fun and Laugh
- Enjoy each others company
The rest we left to our photographers, after all they are the experts
A few cool locations that we weren’t able to incorporate:
- Horseback riding
- Row boating on the river
- Using an old car junkyard to contrast the clothing
- A Honky Tonk
We hope our thoughts, ideas and engagement session tips make your engagement session that much better!
Image taken during our wonderful engagement session by Zach and Jody Gray from Gray Photography