Couples Portraits [cue shutter]

I know! Y’all are not professional models, there’s acne in all the wrong places and UGH YOU FEEL FAT. I promise that couples portraits will be a breeze.

Rest assured, you are beautiful, your love is beautiful and it’ll be fine. Here’s a quick and dirty guide to couples portraits during your wedding (these tips are useful for any time the two of you get together in front of a lens).

Couples Portraits: NO ONE WHO GETS IN FRONT OF MY CAMERA IS A PROFESSIONAL MODEL.

You hired me because somewhere deep down you trust me. Let’s use some of that trust today. It’s not that hard to get in front of the camera, the biggest trick? Understanding that you are just like everyone who gets in front of this camera. They’re made it out just fine, you will too. It’s going to all be ok.

Couple’s portraits are about documenting your love.

It’s not about hiding the back fat, or the acne, or the strand that keeps going in front of your face or anything else. It’s about documenting your love, and if I’m doing my job right your acne, back fat, that small tear in your dress won’t even be visible. Your friends and family generally aren’t looking to cruise through your images with a magnifying glass and a meticulous checklist. Our goal in capturing your wedding day is to get people to FEEL your love. It’s about ignoring all those little thoughts and just breathing your love with your partner. (Also stop looking at the camera).

Wedding Portraits: Get unique.

Doing the same old same old isn’t cool. Let’s push some boundaries and do the unexpected. There are gorgeous nooks and crannies on every venue that haven’t been photographed 3,000 times this season alone. Let’s push for a little bit of y’all to show out and show up. Whether it’s an elevator, a taxi cab, the kitchen of your venue, or some other unique spot let’s go somewhere that speaks to y’all and just makes sense. Like your love, there aren’t really a ton of reasons to explain why that location makes sense — it just makes sense.

Couples Portraits Be authentic.

You don’t need to pose and stare and smile. Just embrace, have a conversation, go for a walk, sit on a park bench together — whatever makes sense. I’ll hover somewhere out of the way and just wait for that moment. You don’t need to just stand and smile at me. In fact, that’s not going to produce what we want. Take a deep breath and just canoodle. If you don’t know what canoodling is, it means to just embrace each other. I might have made it up.

Wedding Portraits: Ignore me.

Honestly, I might be giving some gentle prompts every now and then, but for the most part, just ignore me. I’ll be doing some weird stuff — jumping up on chairs, laying on the ground. The more that y’all are focused on each other, and less on me or the video team or whomever, the better these’ll be.

I hope this helps and if it doesn’t, leave some comments and I’ll give more feedback. Couples portraits seem super scary and they aren’t — this whole process is about documenting your love. So go love each other (just keep ya clothes on you dirty animal) and I’ll do my job.

If this article helped you out check out our blog post about first looks by clicking here.