Cheesy Photos

Why do engagement photos have to look cheesy? Couples staring lovingly into each others eyes, stealing kisses, and holding hands. Okay, so maybe in the end they don't all look cheesy but certainly doing it is completely awkward and unnatural. At least in front of strangers with a camera at least. Matt and I recently got our engagement photos and couldn't be happier with the end results. But I am wondering about all of those cheesy poses. What were we doing?. I have already posted some of our favorites but will use this opportunity to share the cheese. I blogged earlier about the session with Bride's for Brides Photography in Phoenix. They were great and even though we went in with a game plan of strictly no cheese, we should of discussed this with the photographer first. Once we got to the session our game plan went out the window. It was like we were on America's next top model with Tyra telling us every move. And sure enough we fell right into it - the staring, the kissing, the CHEESE!

Cheesy Shot #1: This is the begining and took us a while to warm up. It looks like we hardly know each other.


Cheesy Shot #2: Seriously. This was the most unatural pose. I am laying on top of Matt, in a dress no less. See the look on his face. He is saying get your elbow out of my back please.

Cheesy Shot #3: Matt looking like Joey from Friends. How you doing?

Cheesy Shot #4: Awkward kissing alert.


Cheesy Shot #5: The cliche down on one knee shot. Not at all how Matt proposed, but I will share that another time. I actually kinda like this one and think it is really cute.

Cheesy Shot #6: Super cheesy, no? To tell you the truth I kinda like this one as well.

So even though some of these weren't our favorites there are plenty more that we love. In hindsight I just wish we would have thought about what types of photos we wanted out of the session instead of just putting it on the photographer to tell us what to do and how to stand. Just "relaxing and acting natural" is sort of hard to do. The photographer was totally open to our ideas. For the wedding I want to think about it a little more and make sure we get the shots we want. A couple things I think we did do right were:

1: Booked a great photographer at a great deal. I loved working with Sara at Brides for Brides. One of the best parts is that we own the jpegs and can make our own prints and books.
2: Color cordinated our ourfits with the location. I knew that the location would have tan stucco so wanted to wear color that would pop.
3: Did't force Matt to wear fancy clothes. I fell for a t-shirt and jeans guy so I want to see him in a t-shirt and jeans. Actually before I met Matt he only wore cargo shorts, not jeans. But that is another story.
4: Got engagement photos at all. We thought this wasn't going to be in our budget but am really glad we did it. It is nice to have some really great photos of us in more normal situation, not just from our wedding day. I highly reccomend it.