Valentine’s Day Is Coming and Engagement Portraits Will Soon Follow

February 8, 2008 |

valentines-day-engagement-portraits

Diana and Ian, photographed in Stanley Park for an engagement portrait that was displayed at their reception. (Photo by Julia Pelish)

First comes love then comes engagement then comes photographs before your marriage!

In the coming weeks, I expect to receive many inquiries for wedding photography as girlfriends become fiancées. Did you know more engagement rings are sold in February than in any other month in North America? That’s according to Wedding News Wire and doesn’t surprise me at all. After those rings find fingers on Valentine’s Day each year, people in the wedding business, myself included, get crazy busy.

Even more so these days because engagement portraits are suddenly trendy. While engagement portraits are nothing unusual, how couples use those photographs is evolving. With so many people updating their personal blogs and social-networking web pages, engagement portraits are an increasingly popular keepsake.

Not only that, some romantic men have even gone so far as to hire their own personal paparazzi to capture the moment when they drop down to one knee to pop the question. They don’t want to lose that look when she says, “Yes!”

Candid moments and formal engagement portraits often join old baby pictures and school photos in the popular DVDs that are presented during the wedding reception. I also give my clients the choice of displaying their engagement portrait at their receptions in wider mattes and frames, allowing for best wishes and signatures to go around their photo, thus taking the place of the traditional guestbook.