How to Choose an Outfit for Your Engagement Photos

Deciding on what to wear for your engagement photos can be both an exciting and daunting task. Even for fashionistas, it’s easy to go down the spiral of overthinking and end up paralysed due to an overabundance of choice.

Before you whip out your credit card and spend hours at the nearest shopping centre, consider the 2 guiding principles we give to our clients to help them choose the best outfit for their engagement photos.

Principle 1: Consider the Story and Emotion

It’s late at night and you're flipping through your engagement photos. Except, it’s now 20 years later and it was your little one who dug up the photo album from a dust covered box in your garage. You wipe the dust off the book and sit down with them, recounting your emotion-filled adventures as if it happened yesterday. But really, it’s happening today. What do you want the story of your photos to tell?

If you want the focus to be on expressions and emotions, it’s best to eliminate as much distraction as possible. A simple outfit with neutral colours and minimal patterns is best. On the flip side, if you want your outfit to stand out and your story to resemble a high-fashion look book then choose a bolder outfit.

Principle 2: Consider the Location and Season

Tones

A general guideline on colour is to aim for softer tones such as neutrals, metallics, and earthy tones. These tones are subtle and provide a sense of harmony in most outdoor settings.

We want to clarify that this doesn't mean that you are limited to colours like white, black, grey, and beige. Although, these are some of our favourites! What we mean is to steer away from overly bright, bold, and saturated colours and opt for their softer counterpart. For example, instead of electric blue, neon green, and scarlet red, consider substitutes such as baby blue, olive green, and maroon.

Analogous Colours

After choosing the location, one approach is to use analogous colours that blends well with the environment. These are colours that are close to each other on the colour wheel. Analogous colours ensure that your face, emotion, and the location ar the focus of the photo, rather than your outfit.

One caveat though, is to make sure that the colours, shapes, and textures don’t match exactly to the environment. This will result in you merging into the environment and make the photo look like one of the ‘find the hidden object’ quizzes. For the same reason, your outfits should complement each other rather than match each other.

Complimentary Colours

Complimentary colours are ones that create a strong contrast when put together. Think of a mustard shirt against the blue ocean, or a maroon dress against the lush green foliage. This will make you pop against the background and draw the viewers gaze towards you.

Shapes, Patterns and Textures

One last thing to pay attention to after choosing your location is the shapes and textures that are present in it. The rule of thumb here is to go the opposite way so that you stand out. For example, a highly textured forest with rocks, trees and bushes will benefit from a simple outfit with minimal patterns. Conversely, a simple beach background will be more forgiving to an outfit that stands out.

We recommend choosing materials that can catch wind and show movement easily. This will create a more dynamic image and allow your energy to shine through the image. Depending on the season, natural fibres such as cotton, linen, and wool are some of our favourites!