Engagement & pre-wedding · London

Engagement photoshoot in London

The hour between the proposal and the wedding. Save-the-dates, the photographs your invitations need, and a set of the two of you that is not a phone selfie at arm’s length.

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£150 half an hour · £300 an hour · gallery within a week

What an engagement session is actually for

Three practical things and one that matters more. The practical ones: a photograph for the save-the-date, a photograph for the invitation or the wedding website, and a set your families can finally see. The one that matters: an hour of being photographed together before the wedding day, so that on the wedding day nobody is meeting a camera for the first time.

It is also the cheapest rehearsal there is. You find out how you stand together, which side each of you prefers, and that being directed is not the ordeal you were expecting. Couples who do this arrive at the ceremony already comfortable, and it shows in every frame afterwards.

When to book it

If the save-the-dates have not gone out

Six to nine months before the wedding, which usually means booking the shoot as soon as the date is set. Printing takes longer than anyone expects and you will want the gallery in hand, not in progress.

If you are already engaged and just want the photographs

Any time. Autumn and winter are our favourite months in London: softer light, far fewer people at the good spots, and wet pavement that doubles every light in the frame.

If you are visiting London for a few days

Give us the dates when you enquire and we will pick the hour and the route around where you are staying. Most couples on a short trip do this on the first morning, before the city fills up, and have the rest of the day free.

Couple walking hand in hand across wet Westminster Bridge with a red bus passing
Late afternoon, after rain. Two people walking is the easiest direction there is, and it never looks posed.

Where we shoot engagements

Four areas cover almost everything, and all of them work in an hour without a taxi.

Westminster and the Embankment

The default, and the reason is honest: four completely different backdrops inside ten minutes of walking. The red phone boxes on Great George Street, the river wall with the London Eye across the water, Westminster Bridge itself, and the stone arch underneath it. The full route is on our Big Ben photoshoot page.

The South Bank

Across the bridge, with Parliament behind you instead of in front. Wider pavements, more places to sit, and the best option if one of you would rather not be photographed in front of an audience of tourists.

Notting Hill and the mews

Colour instead of stone: pastel terraces, cobbled mews and front doors. Best on a weekday morning, because Portobello on a Saturday is unphotographable. Tell us at booking and we build the whole hour around it.

Somewhere that means something to you

The pub where you met, the street you lived on, the bench by the canal. It is almost always a better photograph than a landmark, and we would rather go there. Send the address with your dates.

How the hour runs

We direct, you do not pose

Nobody is asked to stand still and smile. You get walking, talking and small things to do — a hand, a coat, a question one of you answers — and the photographs happen in between. Ten minutes in, almost everybody forgets the camera is there.

Rings, if you want them

Two or three frames, done properly and quickly, usually against a coat or a stone wall rather than held up to the sky. Say so at the start and we will get them out of the way early.

What you get, and when

50+ edited photographs, the full gallery within a week, and a handful the same evening if you need something to send home. High-resolution files, ready to print and to use on your wedding stationery, are included; the pricing page has the detail.

Fifteen couples, one city

Sun, rain, fog and flat grey, across Westminster, the Embankment and the South Bank.

Loading Images
Couple embracing with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben behind them
Couple kissing on the Victoria Embankment with the London Eye across the Thames on an overcast day
Couple touching foreheads with the London Eye across the Thames on a grey day
Couple kissing on the Victoria Embankment with the London Eye across the Thames
Couple embracing on the Victoria Embankment in front of the London Eye
Couple hugging by the river wall on the Victoria Embankment, London Eye across the path
Black and white photo of a couple embracing on the Victoria Embankment, London Eye across the Thames
Couple embracing against a red telephone box with Big Ben behind
Black and white photo of a couple by the Thames with the Houses of Parliament behind
Black and white photo of a couple kissing by a phone box near Big Ben
Black and white photo of a couple walking on the Victoria Embankment, London Eye across the Thames
Black and white photo of a couple dancing below Big Ben
Black and white photo of a woman leaping into her partner's arms under Westminster Bridge
Black and white photo of a couple hugging by Westminster Bridge in the fog
Black and white photo of a couple kissing by Westminster Bridge, Big Ben across the river

Questions couples ask

£150 for half an hour at one spot, £300 for an hour across three or four backdrops, £600 for two hours across two areas with time to change. No travel charge inside central London, and the gallery is included rather than sold back to you afterwards.

Nothing, in practice. Both are the same hour with the same photographer; the words just describe when you book it. Some couples do it the week they get engaged, some the month before the wedding.

Six to nine months if you want the photographs on your save-the-dates, and any time at all if you do not. Printers and stationery designers need longer than most couples plan for.

Only if you want photographs of it. Two or three frames is usually plenty, and they work better early in the session than at the end.

We shoot anyway, and some of the best frames in the gallery above were taken in the rain. If the forecast is genuinely unworkable we move you to another day at no cost. There is a whole guide to shooting London in the rain.

Yes. We photograph small weddings and elopements at London register offices, and couples often book the engagement session first and the ceremony afterwards. The detail is on our registry office wedding page.

Tell us about your trip

Tell us when you are in London and roughly when the wedding is. We will come back with a route, the hour with the best light and the price, in one message.

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