For engagement photo sessions, you will have clients that will most likely choose what kind of clothes or attire to wear for the photo shoot. However, once in a while, you have clients who ask you to help them out. Your client may reach out to you to ask questions about what to wear, what accessories are good options, and what their partner should wear. If you’ve had clients who ask you such questions, or you want to learn how to direct your clients to create the perfect outfit for their photo shoot, then this blog is just for you! This blog post will help you to understand how to advise your clients on how to dress for the engagement photo shoot.
Helping Your Clients Look the Best for Their Engagement Photo Session: Tips to help them out
An outfit can make or break your look, which is why your clients will need all the help they can get from you. Before an engagement photo session, you can talk to your clients and figure out what kind of outfits they are planning to wear on the day of the photo shoot.
The reason for doing this is two-fold. Firstly, knowledge of your client’s outfits will help you compose a timeline of the engagement photo shoot, and secondly, it will help you know if your clients know what they’re doing. Secondly, make sure that the outfits that your clients choose fit the photo shoot venue as well as the season. Sometimes, your clients can be dressed appropriately, but their outfits don’t go along with the chosen venue, and that can pose a problem with photo compositions (more on that later).
If you have to help your clients to choose their outfits for the day of the engagement photo shoot, then here are some tips to help you do it better:
1. Understand your Clients
Before you start scratching your head for ideas, the first step would be to understand your clients. Get a feel of what they like. Broadly, your engagement photo session clients will fall under “styled” or “casual.” All you need to do is figure out where your clients fall before you start suggesting engagement session outfits and ways to improve their outfits.
2. Color Palette is the First Step
When you’re advising clients on what to wear for a photo shoot, remember to think of a color palette first. Choosing at least four tones for the day’s outfit will be a good place to start. Although you can suggest picking out more than four colors for their color palette, remember that the more colors you add to the mix, the more specific you’ll have to be with the choices.
That aside, the couple you’re photographing can choose two outfits or a single outfit for the day after they decide which colors they’d like to wear. Choosing tones for the day will help your clients express themselves more.
3. Coordinating, not Matching, is the Key
One of the most important things to remind or tell your clients while suggesting outfits for a photo shoot is to coordinate their outfits. The general notion is that matching outfits make for the best photoshoot outfits. But that is not the case. Matching outfits or twining is always a great idea when you want to have fun or plan a day out. However, for a photo shoot coordination is the key, not matching outfits.
To help your clients coordinate their looks without clashing with each other’s outfits, you can give them the following tips:
- Selecting different tones of the same color is a great way to coordinate outfits. You can suggest your clients try a monochromatic color scheme or use alternating outfit options for their coordinating outfits. For example, if the chosen color scheme is blue and beige, you can advise one of the partners to wear blue on top and beige on the bottom, and vice versa for the other partner.
- Another way to coordinate outfits is to advise your clients to wear similar or the same patterns. For example, both of the partners can be dressed in checks or stripes.
- Similar clothing choices are a great way to look coordinated as well. You can suggest your clients don a suit, two-piece or three-piece, to look coordinated. Additionally, you can also ask them to wear ties and accessories to finish the look.
- If you’re looking at a day of a photo shoot with a couple who likes to dress up for any and every occasion, you can suggest coordinating their accessories to the color of the outfits of their partners.
4. Seasonal Outfits? Perfect-o!
Another way to help your clients feel perfectly at home with their photo shoots is to encourage them to wear seasonally appropriate clothes. Such additions help your clients to feel good, comfortable, and stylish! Additionally, seasonal additions to their outfits also help you to capture the essence of the season or the time of the year in the photo shoot. Encourage your clients to feel free to add hats, coats, scarves, and layers to their outfits for the photo shoot.
5. Location-Appropriate Outfits
One of the most important things to remember is that the outfit choices for the couple should be appropriate for the location. When we say “location-appropriate outfits,” what we mean to say is that the outfits that your clients choose should not look jagged with the venue chosen. For example, an ornate ballgown in front of a graffiti-laden wall looks out of place. A ballgown outfit will look the best for a museum!
Note: Mismatched mix of outfits and locations are a great opportunity to do something different and can give you a very artistic result. However, you will need to discuss this with your client first.
Things To Keep In Mind
Apart from the guide above, there are some more things to keep in mind when you suggest or advise your clients on what to wear for an engagement photo shoot.
When you’re suggesting outfits and ideas, remember to remind your clients that they should prioritize comfort over style. With options and ideas, it is easy for people to forget to plan outfits that are not only amazing to look at, but also keep them comfortable.
The reason behind doing so is actually very simple. If your clients are not comfortable with their outfits, it will reflect in their photos. Additionally, if one of the partners is uncomfortable because of the outfit, the other one will feel uncomfortable as well. And there’s no point in a photo shoot if your clients cannot look like their happy selves!
Once you have some information about the couple and some recommendations, add some examples or ideas to the options. Instead of simply saying to wear blue and khaki, try adding some variations. Additionally, if you feel that the colors will go better with patterns because of the venue or the location of a photo shoot, be open about it and discuss it with your clients.
Side Note: If you feel that your clients are easily swayed by options, give them a few options, the best ones of the suggestions you have on your list, and let them choose from those options. At the end of the day, the goal is to give your clients the options to try not to confuse them further.
Although most of our ideas and helpful tips are all about helping your clients look the best for their great photo shoot. However, there’s something that you may forget as you start the process. When you go through different outfit options with your clients, remember to gauge their reactions, this will help you see what options ring with them.
Also, sometimes you may have clients who are adamant about what they want to wear. Be sure to ask them if they’ll be comfortable wearing their choices. Along with that, tell them why you think the outfits may pose a problem with the venue they’ve chosen. Once they know the reasons why you feel their outfits will pose a problem for the photo shoot, and they still want to continue with the outfit they had picked out, let them. After all, the engagement photo shoot is all about them, and how the couple wants to express themselves.
With that said, we hope that our blog post above helps you to guide your clients on how to dress for their engagement photo session. When you have a client reach out to you, make it a point to be friendly and cordial with them. Always make sure that your ideas should help your clients to look their best, and also make them feel confident.
