Engagement photos!!

Thank you everyone who commented and clamored for the engagement photos in the last post. I'm really touched that people I know only through the internet caring. I've delayed on this a bit because I had some emotions to work through, which I decided to just put into another post about body image and self-esteem entirely. So here are my top picks, with a slideshow of the full set available here.

We started out in our 'formal' outfits, which for me was a mod acid yellow and gray 60s shift from Empire Vintage Clothing and for Dan was his light gray suit that I talked him into getting tailored. Man, the amount of excess fabric they took out!

This is the Hoboken train terminal waiting room, which is gorgeous and looks a bit like Grand Central Station but with fewer people. Sadly an NJTransit cop shooed us away pretty quickly (Kelly was awesomely quick on her feet and told the guy she was Dan's sister) because apparently you need a permit? But I searched and searched afterwards and didn't find anything on their website about applying for one, so in my mind that means it can't be true. I'm still a little peeved that we missed out on the grand shots of the big staircase, but you get a bit of the idea from here.

Kelly was so great about constantly directing us to move closer to each other and to show some affection, just like Amy had told us we should try to do more of.

Mmm vintage-y post-processing effect.

Fie on ugly but necessary signs marring the frame.

I like this one a lot because because I think I look like I feel a bit sassy here. Hellz yeah bright blue dress that's also from Empire Vintage Clothing. Can you guess what that is behind us?

It's the outside of a parking garage in Hoboken! We were walking from the train station to the park at 4th and Hudson and chatting as we went along and then Kelly stops in the middle of a sentence and just says something along the lines of, "Oh my god what is that I love it we are going there to take photos now." Ok!

There was a guy sitting on a bench towards that right that kept telling Kelly she was doing it wrong because the sun was behind us. She showed admirable restraint there, I think.

This is the same park, we just ducked into a small clump of trees and Kelly managed to make it seem like we were in a forest, which was one of the settings that I wanted all along but thought we couldn't make it work with the urban thing together.

Joint effort from Dan, Kelly, and myself. 

I love, love the concept for a save-the-date card (which I think we are going to end up doing after all) but may want to re-do it with a vintage Scrabble board instead so that the board isn't as distractingly colorful, or maybe use some Photoshop effect so that the tiles look illustrated somehow, or do just the tiles and overlay it on another image, like a vintage map of Princeton or NJ. Dan's preference is for something like this from the battles of Princeton and Trenton. Ugh history. Anyway, that'd be on one half of a postcard and another one of these images on the other half. Gets the point across, hopefully, and people can put it on their fridge if they want.

By this point we were already running over on Kelly's time but she never said a word and got this bubble shot that I really wanted in.

So overall, Kelly is basically the most energetic and enthusiastic person I've ever met. She really was wonderful about directing us into poses and making us laugh. I think you can tell that we definitely relaxed into it as the shoot went on, which is the whole point of doing an engagement shoot after all.

Given that, I kind of overprepared for the shoot in terms of props and such. I made a list, checked it twice, and packed everything into my granny cart which was useful for hauling things around but I really didn't need 3 different belts options and more earrings/necklaces/shoes/books etc. As Kelly pointed out when we talked over the phone a few weeks beforehand, the shots of her other couples that I liked the best were the ones where the couples were doing some activity together and yet I clung to having many prop options as a safety line, I suppose. Ah well, so it goes.

For makeup this time around, I scheduled a makeup trial with Jennifer Kang at Mona's in Englewood Cliffs. She was really nice and in a happy coincidence, she happened to be doing these trials for free on the day of our shoot anyway. I regret that I didn't leave her a small tip of some kind just for her time. She applied some fantastically long false lashes that felt pretty weird at first but that I got used to eventually. They weren't too hard to remove at the end of the day, though I needn't have worried at all about them falling out. I'm surprise that they didn't show up more in the photos because they looked enormous to me in the mirror. I also learned from her that you can apparently buy these stickers at Asian grocery stores to put on single-fold eyelids at night to have a double fold in the morning. Weird! And yet, intriguing!

Dan, again, thought there was too much makeup on but I think you can't really tell that there's very much in the photos. I almost want a bit more eye makeup and a stronger lip color, and definitely for my eyebrows to be filled in a bit more, I think. Still, I remain undecided as to whether the minimalistic makeup look I want is worth paying a professional to do. I can buy the makeup and practice myself...but I probably won't do the practicing part of it. I think my sister also wants to the use the occasion to really go for all the beautifying things, since she never went to prom.

So it may be a small thing that ends up being worth throwing money at, but I'm still not quite sure. Plus, a hair person would be separate, and yet there's not much I want done except for it to be blown out nicely. Mama G suggested finding a salon in the Princeton area that I would go to on the morning of to get the blowout and a makeup application but I want to minimize the amount of running around needed that morning. Maybe a place like this La Jolie Hair Salon which has full face regular makeup starting at $45 and a shampoo and blow-dry at $36. The fine print says wedding day work starts at $100 but I'm not too fussed about going in there and not telling them that it's for a wedding.

In conclusion:

1. I heart Kelly.
2. I remain unsure about the makeup thing.
3. I have body image and self-esteem issues to work on that I didn't know I had. More to come on this.