What an engagement shoot is for
The photographs are a by-product. What you are really paying for is an hour of being looked at through a lens before the wedding itself, so the day does not feel like the first time. I have shot wedding photography from £950 for over a decade, and couples who have done one beforehand are visibly calmer with me on the day. Not performing less, just less startled by the camera.
I watch for the same things every time: who reaches for whose hand first, who laughs at what, whether they can stand still without fidgeting. An hour in Victoria Park on a Sunday morning tells me more than any phone call does. For the longer version, I have written about choosing an engagement photographer.
Engagement photography prices
An hour costs £250. Ninety minutes with two locations costs £350. Book it alongside a wedding and the add-on runs £250 to £350, rather than a separate fee stacked on top. Either way you get 30 to 50 edited images within a week.
- An hour or ninety minutes of shooting time, depending on the option chosen
- One or two locations, agreed with you beforehand
- 30 to 50 edited, high-resolution images delivered within a week
| Option | Duration | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Single location | 1 hour | £250 |
| Two locations | 90 minutes | £350 |
| Added to a wedding booking | 1–1.5 hours | £250–£350 |
| Weekday session | 1 hour | £250 |
| Weekend session | 1 hour | £250 |
| Prints and save-the-date cards | — | quoted separately |
Weekday and weekend cost the same. I don’t charge extra for a Saturday, because an engagement shoot does not need the setup a wedding does. See full pricing across every service for how this sits against everything else I shoot.
Where to shoot in London
Victoria Park and London Fields work early, empty at 8am and full of other shoots by 4pm. Columbia Road only earns the trip on a Sunday, for the flower market, and you will share the pavement with fifty people doing the same thing. Little Venice has even light most of the day and rarely needs permission. The South Bank looks like every other engagement gallery in London; I would steer you away from it unless it means something specific to you.
Hampstead Heath, Greenwich Park and the Hackney Wick towpath all photograph well without paperwork. Kew Gardens needs a permit and fee arranged in advance. The best location is usually the pub from your first date or the bench near your flat: somewhere you both use beats anywhere famous. See planning an engagement shoot in London for more of these, and browse couple sessions from across London for a feel of how each shoots.
Pre-wedding shoots and the Asian wedding tradition
A pre-wedding shoot is a bigger production than an engagement shoot: outfit changes, sometimes two or three, often two locations in a day, and a shot list built around family expectations as much as the couple’s own taste. I treat it as its own booking, because the planning differs: hair and make-up scheduling, a car between locations, more time set aside for costume changes than for the photography itself.
If that’s closer to what you are picturing, read pre-wedding shoots in London before you book either.
What to wear, and what not to plan
Two outfits, maximum. Anything more and the hour becomes a costume change with photography squeezed round it. Wear something you already own and feel like yourselves in, not something bought specifically for the shoot, which tends to look like it in every frame.
Skip the props. Balloons, chalkboard signs, “Mr and Mrs” bunting: I would argue against all of it. They date a photograph within a year, and couples often ask me to crop them out of a favourite image later. Two people who like each other photograph better than any prop ever will.
Save-the-dates and what people actually use
Out of 40 delivered images, most couples end up using three: one for the save-the-date, one for a wedding website, one that gets printed and framed. That is worth knowing before the shoot, not after, because it means I spend the hour finding two or three genuinely strong frames rather than fifty similar ones.
- One wide shot with space left for text, for the save-the-date itself
- One close, relaxed portrait, for the wedding website
- One frame-worthy image, for the wall at home
After the proposal
Couples who have had a surprise proposal photography from £250 session often book an engagement shoot three to six months later, once the ring has stopped being the only thing anyone looks at in a photo. It’s a natural sequence: proposal, engagement shoot, wedding, rather than three separate bookings.
When you can skip it
If you are both already comfortable in front of a camera and the budget is tight, skip the engagement shoot and put that £250 towards wedding-day coverage instead. It won’t change how you look on the day if you are already relaxed being photographed. I would rather tell you that now than sell you an hour you do not need.
Want portraits without a wedding attached to them? Portrait sessions from £200 cover that on their own.
Tell me your wedding date and a part of London you both like, and I’ll come back within one working day with two or three location ideas that suit the season.