Personal: Favourite Engagement Shoots of 2011 ~ i heart engagements: Annamarie Stepney Photography {Annamarie Stepney Engagement Photography}

As I wave goodbye to 2011, I couldn’t do so without a little look back of some of my favourite engagement and Wedding portrait shoot images of the year….kicking off today with part 1 – Engagement shoots (check back tomorrow for part 2 – Wedding Portraits).

I’ve said it many a time before, but for me getting to know my couples and the connection between us is an essential ingredient to capturing fabulous images on your wedding day…the more comfortable we all are together, the better the results will be – guaranteed – and this is why I include a complimentary engagement shoot in all my Wedding collections! For me, it’s all about capturing the love you share and the fun you have together….this is afterall what makes you a couple. And I must say, there’s nothing more satisfying when guests ask me at weddings if I am friends with the couple….and this happens alot hehe! I truly love getting to know my couples….and the engagement shoots are vital to this.

It’s not often that you’ve experienced having Professional photos taken of yourself and your fiance, so when it comes to the engagement shoot itself majority of couples are worried about being in front of a camera and ‘taking a really bad photo’….I can honestly say hand on heart if I had a £1.00 from everyone who’ve ever said this to me, I’d be pretty well off by now! hehe I get this though…we’ve all had the awful experiences at school with the ‘big smiles now’ or ‘say cheese’ moments, and sometimes dare I say it, our mothers and fathers kick start the fear of the camera with their over entusiastic attempts to capture every aspect of growing up hehe, and possibly the most damaging of all…the very drunken photos taken by our friends on nights out with terrible light and bad angles…so yes, I get the dread and fear that comes with have your photo taken! It’s rare for people to feel anything different, but after a few minutes with me on an engagement shoot all those feelings of fear and dread go…trust me they do! The other really important thing about these shoots, is that in getting to know you and how you both tick, I can capture you together simply as you are….and thus all my engagement shoots are different because each couple is different….we play with some posing, but majority of the time it’s about having fun and you’ll hardly notice (or even care!) that I’m taking your photos! And if you don’t believe me, just go see some of the gorgeous couples I’ve had the pleasure to get to know this year…and see for yourself how relaxed and fabulous they all look…