An engagement session with your photographer is so much more than just getting pretty photos nowadays. An engagement session a great way to meet your photographer in person if you haven’t yet. AND you’ll get amazing photos you can use all throughout the different stages of wedding planning. Engagement photos have the potential to be used in several different ways. As a wedding photographer, I believe the worst thing you could do is to contain those photos on your phone. You want to use them, and you should use them.
Here are my top tips for where to use your engagement photos for before, during, and after your wedding:
Save-the-Dates and Wedding Invitations
Save-the-Dates and wedding invitations go hand in hand. This one is probably already the most popular way couples use their engagement photos. Surprisingly though, some couples don’t use their photos for Save-The-Dates! You can make adorable cards or magnets through businesses like Canva, Zazzle, or Artifact Uprising. If you aren’t utilizing Save-the-Dates, then you could also do a small print to include in your invitation suite. This may sound cliche, but your families will keep them forever if they have your photo on it. Trust me. I was an October 2023 bride and my father-in-law still has ours on his fridge. He keeps it because it’s a photo of us!
Wedding Decor
This one is probably one of my favorite ways you could incorporate your engagement photos. I worked with a couple at Westers Family Vineyard back in June 2024. This is a stunning wedding venue in Rives Junction, Michigan. They had printed out their engagement photos and displayed them all around the venue. These were large-scale prints of 11×14 & 16×20 put into frames around the venue. It almost reminded me of an art gallery. Guests would walk around the room and stop to look at their photos. If you need large prints, I highly recommend Artifact Uprising! The quality is so so good and I use them ALL the time.
If the large-scale prints aren’t totally your vibe, there are other ways you can display them throughout your venue. Bar signage, table numbers, menus, and programs are all things that could use smaller scale prints of your engagement photos.
Fun Activities
There’s nothing I love more on a wedding day than when couples have activities for their guests. It really shows that a couple cares about their guest experience. Incorporating activities into their day for others makes your day extra memorable. To make these activities extra special, add your engagement photos into the mix! I’ve seen giant word searches and crossword puzzles during cocktail hour with engagement photos printed on them. It’s a fun activity and shows off those photos. You could do custom cornhole boards- which I’m finding to be quite the popular thing in Michigan! I’ve heard guests raving about these activities throughout the night!
Another one I’ve seen recently are wedding newspapers. The couple creates a few articles along the lines of “thank you for being here” and “this is how we met”. There are activities spread throughout like the above word searches and crossword puzzles. This is a great idea, especially for guests who may not be able to leave their seat for extended periods of time.
Guest Book
Your guest book doesn’t have to be a blank book where guests just sign their names. We want to be intentional with the way we use our engagement photos. Why not incorporate that into the guest book? Guests will be able to flip through this photo album, and leave a message by their favorite photo of you. I personally did this for my own wedding. We love flipping through our album every once in awhile to see what our guests wrote. I keep my guest book album on our coffee table alongside our wedding album!
Favors
If you opt not to use your engagement photos for Save-The-Dates, consider using them as favors for your guests! There are so many ways to do this. I always recommend for favors keeping it simple, but personal. Guests are more likely to throw out a favor if it’s not personal or just another drink koozie. Really think about your guests and their experience. My husband and I had playing cards as our wedding favors. Here’s why: our family gets together once a week to play. It’s so much fun. We have a potluck style dinner and play euchre! Because of this, I customized the cards to have one of our engagement photos on them. I ordered them in bulk from Shutterfly. Our friends and family took the favors and they are now the go-to deck of cards when we play! We were intentional with our favors and guests loved them!
Edible favors are least likely to be wasted. Guests will be looking for a little sweet treat throughout cocktail hour or maybe closer to the end of reception. For my cousins wedding, we had tiny stickers printed and stuck onto chocolate. I’ve seen this done with cookies as well! Every wedding I’ve attended and worked have never had any leftover edible favors.
Thank You Cards
It is so important to send thank you cards to your guests. Thank them for traveling to celebrate with you. Thank them for their gift. Like your invitations, friends and family are more likely to keep a thank you card if it’s personal. It can take some time for photographers to edit your wedding gallery, so use an engagement photo instead! A pro tip for thank you cards: postcard stamps are cheaper than regular stamps. I would recommend keeping your message on a postcard brief just for the sake of card space. I think postcards are so fun! These can be created on Canva, Zazzle, or Artifact Uprising.
The possibilities are endless when it comes to utilizing your engagement photos for your big day! Local printing shops are probably your best bet for bulk orders. I personally didn’t have this option and used online services because I live way out in the country. I also designed everything myself. When using online services, I ordered bulk orders around the holidays. Think Black Friday, Christmas, or Memorial Day sales. Shipping times may be extended during these times, but I saved some money with the deals available!
