Plenty of couples think an engagement shoot is an indulgence they could skip. It's usually the most useful hour of the whole process.

Your wedding day is almost certainly the first time you'll be photographed together properly, and it happens with eighty people watching, on a tight schedule, in the middle of the most emotionally loaded day of your life. An engagement shoot moves that first time somewhere much easier. No audience, no timings, no pressure. By the end of it you'll know what I'm going to ask of you, I'll know how you two actually are together, and the awkward first twenty minutes will already be behind us rather than in front of us on the day.

We'll shoot somewhere that means something to you — where you met, where you got engaged, a stretch of countryside you walk at weekends, or simply somewhere that looks good in the late afternoon. I'll give you enough direction that you're never standing there wondering what to do with your hands, then mostly leave you to talk to each other while I work around you.

You'll come away with images for your save-the-dates, your invitations or the wall, and a much easier day when the wedding itself comes round.

Based in the West Midlands. Available across the UK.