Dragonfly Photography
Planning the Perfect Spring Engagement Session
Wade Lagoon & the Cleveland Cherry Blossoms
This may sound somewhat obvious but the time of year you plan your engagement session will have a fairly dramatic effect on the look and feel of your engagement photos. Of course, this all depends on where you live or where you’re planning to travel for your engagement photos.
In the Cleveland, Ohio area, or really the midwest in general, one of the most beautiful times of the year is spring. I have lived a few places and traveled a whole lot more and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a place with so many blooms. Literally, every tree is flowering, every bush is budding, it’s a Pinterest engagement dream come true. 🙂 I genuinely struggle to drive down the street without saying “ooooo, ohhh wowwww” every spring. It’s downright magical.
So how do you take advantage of this beautiful time of year for your engagement sessions?
- Be flexible on timing. To make an engagement session of your floral dreams come true, you might have to be a little flexible on timing. Do you know how sometimes winter lasts until March and sometimes until June? Ya, the flowers noticed too. What do you do? Usually, we recommend planning a shoot for a couple of weeks as an intended time for our engagement session. But on our side, we’ll be keeping an eye out for what the flowers are actually doing and we may need to readjust accordingly. It will be worth it to get the look you really want. There is a chance that you’ll be driving down a random street and you’ll see me mid-March standing on the side of the road looking chatting with a tree and inspecting its buds. Just mind you’re own business this is completely normal and apparently part of being a photographer they forgot to include in the brochure. Right along with being a full-blown meteorologist… 😉
- Consider a bouquet from a florist. This is a beautiful way to add a floral pop to your engagement and have a little fun with some non-local variety blooms. It’s also a great way to get to know a florist vendor you might be considering for your wedding day in a non-pressure situation.
- Think light and flowy for your wardrobe. It cannot be stated how important having the right look for your engagement session can be. But you’re in luck. Spring, in my opinion, is a fairly easy season to dress for. Think light and airy, pastels, flowy looks. I recommend something really organic looking if you’re planning on being out in a field somewhere. If the look and feel is more a cherry blossom engagement in DC or Wade Lagoon at the Cleveland Museum of Art, then a lighter color cocktail dress never goes out of style. You can find our full style guide for choosing your [engagement look here].
- Schedule professional hair and makeup. This is something I think is important no matter what the time of year but having a professional craft your look will help you feel like the most stunning version of yourself. I can’t recommend it enough. Again, it’s a wonderful opportunity to get a feel for vendors you may want alongside you on your wedding day.
Cherry Blossoms – Things to note
If you have your heart set on a cherry blossom session (and believe me, I’m right there with you) there are a few things you need to prepare for specifically.
- Sunrise. We need to schedule your engagement session at sunrise… I know, take it in! However, you’ll thank me! There are just FAR too many people around to be working with the blossoms in the evening and the last thing you want is to be dogging other people in your photos. On top of that, your engagement session is supposed to be a really wonderful time for just the two of you. Fighting the mass crowds is, less than ideal and it can make it really hard to relax and enjoy each other which is the main point. In spring the light is also significantly more beautiful in the morning. And because the days are still relatively shorter it’s not that early. We’re talking about 7 am! For those reasons and a few others if you want cherry blossoms, sunrise it is! 😉
- We will set a date and then stay in touch. Much like a [snowy engagement session], there is a lot of ‘pick a date’ and hope for the best. The trees usually bloom the beginning to mid-April so that’s when we will schedule your engagement session but depending on the weather we may have to bump that by a week or two to get it just perfect. If your schedule is extremely rigid a Museum of Art Chery Blossom session probably isn’t the best fit for you.
No matter the time of year, your engagement should be beautiful and full of lots of laughter. It’s a time to get comfortable in front of our cameras and focus on the two of you. If you want to read a little more about why I think engagement sessions are so important and why we include either a Natural or Styled Engagement session in each of our wedding packages, you might want to have a peek at this [blog] as well.
