One of our favourite locations for a forest engagement session is the Olympic Picnic Ground in Dandenong Ranges. Its a small picnic ground that I used to drive by all the time on the main road.
It has a lot of greenery and a secluded picnic table to enjoy some snacks or crack open a bottle of wine together.
Is a forest location the right engagement location for you?
The best engagement session location is a place where you love to be or feel the most comfortable. These places tend to already be the places you would go together on your dates!
For Courtney & Zane, they love to drink wine together, go camping and four-wheel driving. We made sure we got them to share some wine together so they could feel a lot more comfortable.
How to make the most of your engagement session in the Dandenong Ranges Forest?
Spend some time exploring and looking around the area. If you have a really beautiful location, just be present and really in the moment with your fiancé. We love to bring couples to locations and just let you explore the place as though we’re not even there.
Bring a picnic that you can share together! Everyone usually feels a lot more comfortable when they’re doing an activity or holding something so this is one of the best ways to include more natural motion and get you more comfortable and feeling a lot less awkward.
The best engagement photos will happen when you feel comfortable to be yourself. Usually this is very easy because you can just turn around and muck around with the love of your life! You’re about to marry your best friend and just canoodle and have fun together.
What to do if you feel awkward about your engagement session?
Courtney and Matt were a little nervous for their engagement session because they said that they find themselves quite awkward people, but with a few suggestions and prompts we made them feel more comfortable and they couldn’t stop giggling.
Your photographer should ask what makes you most comfortable in front of the camera whether that means giving you both more direction or just cracking a lot of jokes to get you guys laughing.
What if it rains at my engagement session?
Bad weather is a common stress during a photo session or wedding day because everyone wants beautiful outdoor photos and your session are always planned months in advance.
Most photographers will provide you with some umbrellas to cozy up together since the rain can add a romantic vibe to your photos.
The best thing to do is to just embrace it and have fun in the rain!
Why should you have an engagement session?
A lot of couples spend a lot of time stressing about every detail of their wedding day and the time they’re engaged often goes over looked. Now I look back at the time I was engaged and even miss the wedding planning stress.
There’s a lot of nostalgia that comes with thinking back to that time because I had such a quick engagement (6 months), and I did a lot of planning stuck at home with my then fiancé because it was lockdown.
I know it feels like the planning may never end and that everything doesn’t feel like it will come together, but it will. I promise you. And it will be a time that you want to look back on. You’ll look back at those photos and think omg that was back when we we just engaged!
All of our wedding packages already include a complimentary engagement session so head over to our website to learn more.