How to Take Your Own Engagement Pictures

          If you’re like me and don’t like to pay somebody to do something that you can do yourself, this post may be for you.  My fiancé and I have been planning our wedding and we are doing a lot of DIY’s, including taking our own photos.  Hiring a photographer for all of the wedding-related things can cost thousands.  Even an engagement session can cost several hundred dollars.  We decided that instead of hiring a photographer, we were going to buy a nice camera and take our own photos.  It’s not as difficult as it sounds.  Maybe these photos aren’t up to your standards but we aren’t that picky.  We just want to remember the moments and have some nice looking pictures.  

          These are from our second session.  Another perk of taking them yourself is that you can take as many as you want, wherever you want, until you are satisfied.  We are both super awkward in front of the camera as well and don’t like the idea of having a stranger take such intimate pictures of us.  As a child, I remember my mom paying for professional photo sessions for me instead of buying school pictures and I never liked any of them.  At least this way you can choose your own poses and make sure your smile looks alright.  

          The way we take our own pictures is by setting up the camera on a tripod.  This is pretty obvious, but you really do need one.  The camera we use is the EOS Canon Rebel SL2.  It was pretty affordable for what it can do.  With this camera you can connect a phone to it through an app.  You can see what the camera sees through your phone and take the picture when you are ready from a distance.  A lot of Canon cameras can do this and probably some others.  Canon has it’s own app that lets you view and download the photos straight to your phone.  It makes taking pictures so easy.  You just have to hide your phone in the picture.  You also have the option of using the self timer.  If you want to have your hands free this is a pretty easy way to do that.  For photo ideas I just looked on Instagram and Pinterest and saved some images to my phone.  Be sure to let me know if you guys try this. 

          These are the pictures from our first session.  We took these so long ago (a year ago) and always planned on taking more.  The reason some of the poses are the same is because we didn’t want to do any of the close-up cheesy hugging poses.  If you missed my post about our engagement, you can find that HERE.