An engagement session is easy to think of as simply an opportunity for more photos, but there are practical reasons to get in front of the camera before your wedding day.

From getting comfortable with your photographer to choosing a location that feels distinctly yours, an engagement session can make the wedding photography experience easier while giving you images that capture a completely different season of your relationship.

For couples planning a wedding in Delaware or Maryland’s Eastern Shore, there’s another advantage: an incredible variety of settings within a relatively small region. Beaches, historic towns, gardens, waterfront destinations, estates, farmland, and city streets can all create a completely different look from your wedding venue.

Photo by Lindsay Monahan Photography

1. You’ll Get Comfortable With Your Photographer

An engagement session gives you a chance to experience how your photographer works before the wedding day. You’ll learn how they give direction, what kinds of prompts they use, and how they help you settle into being photographed.

By the time your wedding arrives, you’re working with someone you already know and trust.

2. You’ll Feel More Comfortable in Front of the Camera

If your first reaction to engagement photos is, “We’re awkward in front of a camera,” that’s actually a great reason to schedule them.

Most couples aren’t accustomed to being professionally photographed. An engagement session gives you time to get past those first few uncomfortable minutes and discover what feels natural to you together.

3. Your Photographer Gets to Know You, Too

The session is just as useful for your photographer. They get to see how you naturally interact, how much direction you prefer, what makes you laugh, and which poses or angles work particularly well for you.

That’s valuable knowledge they can bring into the wedding day.

Photos by Jana Bannan Photography

4. You Can Choose a Completely Different Setting

Your engagement session doesn’t need to look anything like your wedding. In fact, we love when it doesn’t.

Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore offer an incredible range of possibilities. In Delaware, couples can choose the beaches and coastal streets of Lewes or Rehoboth Beach, the architecture and gardens of an estate setting, the energy of downtown Wilmington, or the open landscapes found throughout Central and Southern Delaware.

Across the Eastern Shore, waterfront towns like St. Michaels offer quintessential Chesapeake scenery, while Easton brings historic streets and architecture into the mix. 

If you’re getting married at a Wilmington estate, you might head to the coast for your engagement photos. Planning a waterfront wedding in St. Michaels or Cambridge? Consider a garden, historic estate, or downtown setting for an entirely different collection of images.

5. You Can Tell Another Part of Your Story

Your location can also be personal. Consider the town where you met, a favorite date-night spot, the beach you visit every summer, your own neighborhood, or another place that’s meaningful to your relationship.

It doesn’t have to be a traditional engagement photo destination. A photographer with a great eye can often turn a meaningful location into something special.

“I love when couples choose a location they have a connection to, whether it’s somewhere they visit often, where they got engaged, or a place that lets them incorporate something meaningful, like their pets.”
— Jana Bannan, Jana Bannan Photography

6. You’ll Learn What You Like in Photos

An engagement gallery can help you identify the kinds of images you’re most drawn to. You may discover that you love wide environmental portraits, close-up images, lots of movement, more composed portraits, or photographs where you’re interacting instead of looking at the camera.

Knowing those preferences gives you something concrete to share with your photographer before the wedding.

7. You’ll Have Professional Photos for All the Pre-Wedding Things

Save the dates and wedding websites are only the beginning. Engagement photos can be used for shower décor, guest books, framed displays, social announcements, signage, and other personalized wedding details.

A Real Wedding Idea: For our own music-themed wedding, we turned our engagement photos into custom “album covers” that became part of the wedding design. Engagement photos can become much more than save-the-date images when you think about how they might work within the larger creative direction of your celebration.

Photos by Still Poetry Photography

8. You Can Capture a Different Season

An engagement session is an opportunity to show another side of Delaware and the Eastern Shore. A fall session surrounded by changing leaves can provide a completely different aesthetic from a summer wedding in Rehoboth Beach. Spring gardens, quiet winter beaches, summer sunsets along the Chesapeake, and autumn landscapes each bring their own character to the photos.

Not sure what time of year will give you the look you’re after? Our Delaware Wedding Seasons Explained guide breaks down what to expect throughout the year, from seasonal landscapes and temperatures to sunset timing.

9. It’s a Low-Stakes Trial Run

There are no ceremony start times, cocktail hours, family photo lists, or reception entrances waiting for you during an engagement session. You have time to focus on each other and get familiar with the photography process.

That experience can make wedding-day portraits feel much more familiar when there are considerably more things competing for your attention.

10. You’ll Document This Chapter, Too

Your wedding photos will tell the story of your wedding day. Your engagement photos capture something different: this particular season of your relationship.

It’s a relatively short chapter between deciding to get married and actually becoming married, and it’s worth documenting in its own right.

Photo by Ash Elliot Photography

Ready to Plan Your Engagement Session?

Start with a photographer whose work and personality feel like the right fit. Many wedding photography packages include an engagement session, and working with the same photographer gives you the added benefit of getting to know each other before the wedding day.

Delaware Wedding Photographers: Find the Right Photographer for Your Wedding Style