Nancy and Chris will be married in Scotland next year. Here’s a slideshow from our engagement session in Ann Arbor.

Nancy and Chris Engagement from Edward Maurer on Vimeo.

Nancy and Chris will be married in Scotland in 2011 and I am very excited to be part of their wedding. We met in Ann Arbor for some fun engagement photos and to learn about their wedding day. Their two Australian Shephards joined us for the shoot too.

Why bother with an engagement session? Why do I include an engagement session in every wedding package?

My family and friends already know me as a guy that has a camera and takes pictures. That relationship has already been established since it’s common to see me with the camera to my eye and a smile on my face. Actually, the camera has almost become a part of the family as well.  I’m a member of this exclusive club of friends and family, and I know each person’s personality and how to capture it in the right way. I know that uncle Bob will be leaning against the wall with a scotch in his hand or cousin Joe will be dancing crazily on the dance floor after a few soda pops. It allows me to capture those candid moments that really tell the story of the day. Conversely, members of my family learn to expect that I have a camera and know when to pose for a non-candid shot if they want one.

When I meet a bride and groom, I’m not yet a member of this exclusive club of friends. The engagement session gives us an opportunity to become familiar with each other, and by the time the wedding comes I hope to have new friends that expect me to have a camera to my eye. I hope to be enough a part of the group to understand how to tell the story. That one or two hours of time that we have together gives the bride and groom the opportunity to become familiar with me, how I work, who I am, and who they are. I learn what angles work best for them, and what kinds of things to look for on the wedding day. The bride and groom learn how I work. They learn that I will give them a suggestion as to where to walk or stand and then I won’t talk to them for a few moments. It’s in those moments that they learn to ignore the camera and concentrate on each other. Those are the moments when the candid works of art happen. Sometimes during an engagement session I’ll give a bit more direction to help understand body position and composition. The whole session is a mixture of candid and posed shots that blend well together as a story.

So, why bother with an engagement session? I photograph weddings because I love to tell people’s story, and the engagement session helps us to understand how to tell it.

Every blog post needs some photos, so here are a few brides and grooms that I will have the honor of photographing their weddings this year. I look forward to being a part of their first day as husband and wife and telling that part of their life story.

Nancy and Chris will be getting married next year in Scotland at the Eilean Donan Castle. It’s the most photographed castle in Scotland and I imagine that it will be just beautiful for their wedding day. For their engagement session they were open to have them taken anywhere as long as their dogs Bleu and Wyatt could join us. So I suggested a location that I would go to study when in college years ago, Gallop Park in Ann Arbor. The mix of the water, bridges, and trees were a great fit as long as the dogs didn’t try to chase after the ducks. Both dogs worked very well for the camera and we had a great time there.

Later we went downtown Ann Arbor for some shots near the Law Diag.  Nancy and Chris were a pleasure to meet and I really had a great time learning about them and capturing them for this wonderful time in their lives.

One final note.  I met Nancy the following day at the  Oakland County Cross Fit where she has been working out with my wife.  I gave the Cross Fit a try for the first time, and let me tell you that I have never worked harder in my life.  I’ll be waiting for the next on-ramp class so that I can gradually work up to the amount of strength needed, because as I type this my arms are sore just from lifting my hands to the keyboard.  I usually run, so using all of the muscles in my body is a foreign task for me.  If you have a local Cross Fit, I highly recommend it.  It will change your life.

I have a list of locations that I send to bride and grooms to help them decide on an engagement session location, and on that list has always been Frankenmuth Michigan. The city has a lot of character and a lot of great memories for me and I have had quite a few images stored in my memory bank that needed to be captured on camera. Thousands of photo opportunities awaited us today including a picture with the wait staff at the Bavarian Village.   Even the lady that plays the accordion! Here’s a sneak peek of some of the awesomeness we were able to capture today. (That’s right, I said awesomeness, it’s a word, right?)

Today is a day of culling and editing for me. This is where I get to re-live last week’s engagement session with Katie and Rudy and pick my favorites. In two hours I captured about 1000 images. Culling is the process of going through those images and picking my favorites. I use Adobe Lightroom 2.0 for this process and it makes things so easy because I can quickly review each image and flag my favorites. We had such an awesome session that I flagged about 200 images.

The next stage of the process is to display just my favorites and begin editing each to make them look like something I would put on the wall. In fact, that’s what I ask myself “Would I want this framed and on the wall for display?” Here’s just one of the images that I have been working with today. Enjoy.