I, on the other hand, thought it was something we should absolutely do. I thought it would be nice to document our engagement in a formal way before we got completely swamped in projects and planning. Furthermore, John and I didn't really have any super-nice photos from our dating days, and I also thought it would be a great way to get to know Jeff before the actual wedding day. If we got to know each other early, I thought the wedding day itself would be more relaxed and therefore lead to the photos themselves being better.
So, I was able to convince John that engagement portraits were important. After the session, he said that he was very glad that I convinced him to do it and that it was one of the best days we'd ever had together, aww.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
In mid-May 2008 I contacted Jeff to see when he would be available for an engagement portrait session. Of course May and June are super-busy months in the wedding industry and Jeff's weekends would no doubt be jam-packed with weddings to shoot, so we agreed to meet on a weekday (John and I both took the day off) in early June on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, NJ. Jeff asked us to bring at least one change of clothes and not to be overly fussy about things, just to wear something that we would normally wear in our every day lives.
John and I got there early in the morning and we waited on a bench by the Midway Steak House, our meeting spot. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, not too hot, but sunny and lovely. Jeff arrived shortly afterward and introduced us to his assistant, Drew. Only seconds later we were booking it up to the north end of the boardwalk to see if we could shoot near some creepy, giant clown heads that Jeff spied all the way from Midway!
There was just one problem, in that the clown heads were in a fenced-in area of the pier. We asked a security guard if they could let us in just to take a few photos, but the guard wouldn't let us and said that we would have to obtain written permission from the boardwalk's marketing department be granted access. What?! Oh well, whatever, man.
So, instead, Jeff led us to a Frog Bog game and we took the first photos of the day:
We had so many people stopping and staring at us while we were shooting the Frog Bog shot! I guess people aren't used to seeing couples straddling near boardwalk attractions? Ha ha. Anyway, Jeff had to ask people to disperse because they kept getting into the background of our shot. If you look at the right side of the image, you can see that we still captured the attention of the wheel attendant in the background!Then we took some fun shots while John gave me a piggyback ride down the boardwalk:
Jeff kept telling me to really exaggerate my laughing and my smile, and actually say "HA! HA! HA!" as John ran toward him, but I didn't really have to exaggerate because I was so amused anyway!Our next stop was a nearby arcade, where we shot a series of pictures in front of a fun house mirror. But the funniest thing about the fun house mirror shots is that we had no idea Jeff was shooting us! We thought we were just investigating the mirror:
Me: "I don't get it. It looks like our image should be stretched, but it looks like a normal mirror to me..."
Me: "Oh wait! John! I figured it out, you have to crouch down to see it all distorted."
Me: "Ha ha ha! How amusing! How silly we look!!"Hee hee.
After those shots we had a quick wardrobe change, and Jeff spied a really colorful balloon dart game that would make a fun backdrop:
While we were shooting this, the smart alec working at the next booth asked us what we were doing, and John said "Shooting our engagement pictures." To which, the booth attendant replied, "Ah, the beginning of the end, huh?"When I showed Mom Jeff's website and she saw how creative his shots were, she was concerned that maybe we wouldn't have any plain, facing-the-camera type shots that would be appropriate for an engagement announcement in the newspaper. Jeff kindly obliged:
What? She never said it couldn't have a background of Mario dolls! ;-)
"Get a room!!" - practically everyone on Seaside Heights boardwalk to us.
Aww. But who knew Sonic the Hedgehog and his girlfriend Amy were such voyeurs?
Having a giggle. Some girls decided to walk right up the ramp to the side of the balloon game, completely oblivious to the fact that Jeff and Drew were trying to shoot us, and they walked right in front of the camera like they owned the place. "Excuuuuuse me, Jersey girls!" Jeff said.We then left our balloon game and headed south. Along the way, Jeff spotted this awesome little alleyway to shoot in:
Not pictured, but also with us in the alley: vomit on the ground (really!), and graffiti that exclaimed "lick my ass!" Ha ha! (And this just might be the only wedding blog on the world-wide web to have that phrase within its posts!)Jeff also had a great idea for a shot of my ring. He took it from me and very carefully placed it on the boards. John and I then stood over it and strategically cast our shadows:
Understandably, John and I were both very nervous during this shot, ha ha. It didn't help that we were attracting attention again; I worried that one of the passersby would either dive in and snatch my ring, or perhaps knock it down between the slats!! But instead, one of the passersby sarcastically said: "Oh. I get it. It's a HEART." Whatever man, I don't see you with anyone! ;-)Right next to the area where we did the ring shot was a closed attraction with graffiti all over its metal gate. Awesome. In the first of these shots we are laughing because someone walked by just as we were about to kiss, and shouted out "Whaddya doin', shootin' a soft-core porn or somethin'?!"
We then headed toward John's favorite part of the boardwalk: Flashback Arcade. Nearby was an indoor carousel:
...and a "Test Your Passion Factor" chair:
We then decided to go down onto the beach itself for some shots. We went underneath the pier and were surprised at how, well, picturesque it was! Drew commented that it looked like something straight out of an Indiana Jones movie!
"Why didn't we just do the entire shoot under here?" John joked.
While under the pier we also took some silhouette shots with the Seaside Heights rides in the background:
It was then time to head down towards the water's edge. We drew a heart with our initials in the sand:
We also stuck our handprints in the sand, complete with my engagement ring! Although, truth be told, I just wasn't strong enough to push my hand very far into the packed sand, so John and Jeff had to help me out a bit ;-)
Remember the creepy clown faces Jeff wanted to shoot at the very beginning of the day? Well, we had already been shooting for several hours and we were pretty much wrapping things up, so I suggested to Jeff that John and I jump up onto the restricted part of the pier from the beach. In the worst-case scenario we would be kicked out, but it wouldn't really matter since we pretty much finished our shoot anyway. Jeff agreed that it sounded like a good plan, and that's just what we did:
And we didn't even get yelled at!Our last shot of the day was taken as we were walking back to the cars. Jeff has a few "signature shots" that you will see throughout his portfolio, and one of them is the bride and/or groom "flipping the bird" with their ring fingers. I knew I wanted that shot for the wedding but I hadn't considered it for the engagement shoot. If I knew we were going to do it, I would have practiced sticking my ring finger up ;-) It's harder than it seems, really!! Nevertheless, we got a great shot out of it:
So all in all, we accomplished all of our goals with the engagement shoot. We got some amazingly wonderful shots of the two of us, we spent the entire day feeling like celebrities (one person asked Jeff what he was doing with us, and Jeff said that he was shooting a fashion spread for Rolling Stone... and the guy believed him!!), but most importantly we got to know Jeff and Drew before the wedding day. It was an amazing day and I wish we could do it all over again!
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