Engagement photos is it necessary?

Definitely not necessary but many photographers do complimentary ones with their wedding packages yhsgs the only reason we are doing ours!

Not necessary- i know people who totally skipped over it. however, i really wanted one to help my FH be comfortable with the camera.

A lot of times, an engagement session is included in the wedding package. These are super helpful to get to know your photographers and what to expect the day of. If it isn't included in your package, I would skip it to be honest. We had a lot of fun at ours, but we really aren't going to be using the photos for anything.

I would think they would be nice to have.

Many, many photographers now include the engagement shoot as part of their package. It enhances their value, and allows both you and the photographer to have experience together, which I've been told people have found beneficial for the big day.

Our package will include one, and we are going to do it late July/early August (January wedding). If it was NOT included, I probably would not have paid extra for it... but I may have had my cousin take some (amateur photographer, but good photos), and paid her to do some editing, just so we have a few for the wedding website/social media, etc....

We didn't bother with an engagement shoot. Just had my momma take a couple pics of us together.

It depends on your photographer as many include engagement pictures in their wedding package options. My fiancé and I's photographer told us the average cost per hour is $300 among her and her industry peers (and most engagement photoshoots take an hour).

Depends on who's doing your photos and where. my FH and I did a photoshoot with a photog that i LOVE and we paid a total of around $1600 (photography permit + photos on USB).

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I'm going to opt it out to cut cost.

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You can opt out of it for sure! I've been to plenty of weddings where there were no formal pictures of the bride and groom at the wedding reception.

We got it as the package included it. If you feel it's not needed, don't get it done and bring down the price of the package.

Most seem to be included in the package but if you aren't going to use it, some photographers are willing to add that extra time to the wedding day coverage instead.

I felt that the engagement session was a way to get to know our photographer and to see what their work is like and to get use to being comfortable kissing in front of the camera. It’s not necessary to have an engagement session, but usually it comes along complementary with whatever package your photographer has. I don’t think that it will reduce the cost if you opt out, but then I’m not 100% sure.

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When you narrow it down to a few photographers, most will offer engagement photos, so if you really don't want them (or need them), definitely ask if they can make you a package without and that should be a cost-saver for sure!

Unless you decide you want to go for it, then definitely seek out a package that includes them.

View quoted message I don't have one yet. Still looking around

I did engagement photos as our wedding invite had a place for a picture and I wanted some photos for around the reception area at the wedding. You can easily do this on your own though, or share some pictures of the two of you that you've already taken.

A lot of photographers include engagement photos in their packages, so you may want to check out what yours offers (if you already have a photographer), otherwise, feel free to opt out and grab a cheaper package.

View quoted message But dont you need it to show it at the reception? Or can you opt it out?

Definitely not necessary! We did two different shoots only because one was including with our wedding photography package and the other was because we won a Valentine's day contest. If we had to pay for it individually then we probably wouldn't have done it.

You don't need to have one if you don't want one. We're getting ours done because it's included in the wedding package with our photographer, if it wasn't, we wouldn't be doing it.