We highly recommend engagement portrait sessions to all of our San Francisco City Hall couples. There are a number of reasons why engagement sessions are a good idea. For one thing, it gives the bride and groom a chance to develop rapport with their wedding photographer. More importantly, it allows the photographer to figure out what kinds of things work best with a particular couple. In the past, some very important things have come out of our San Francisco engagement portrait sessions. For example, one time we had a client who blinked almost every time we took a picture of them. This was a good thing to discover in advance of the actual City Hall wedding. There are tricks we can use to get around that problem and we were able to do so in this particular instance. It also gives you, the client, the chance to let us know some of the things you prefer when it comes to having your photos taken. One example of this was a client who asked us to no longer have them kiss during photos. We frequently ask our brides and grooms to kiss during portrait sessions to try to make the photos romantic. There are some people who prefer that they not be told to kiss, instead they want to do it on their own. No matter what the reason, it's a good thing to get out of the way before the wedding actually occurs. The photo image is one of our clients who decided to choose a package that included engagement session and the actual wedding coverage . We have them do a number of fun types of poses at various locations. This one is is kind of a standard picture with the couple looking at the camera. We have learned over time that it's good to mix it up and give our clients and nice combination of opposed professional photos and for candid interactive photos. A well-rounded album will give them a little of both