Paris · Pre-Wedding Photography
Before the ceremony, before the guests, before the dress and the vows — there is a moment that belongs only to you. An engagement session in Paris is not a rehearsal. It is its own story, in the city where the light turns gold at the end of every afternoon.
Book Your Session →Sessions from €350 · 60–150 images · Private online gallery
The session
It begins with a walk. That is almost always how it goes. We meet at the agreed location — the edge of the Marais, the top of the steps in Montmartre, a bridge you chose because something happened there — and we start moving. I walk slightly apart from you, watching. You talk, you stop, you look at something. I photograph what happens.
An engagement session is not a portrait shoot. There is no backdrop, no "turn slightly to the left." It is documentation of the way you are together when no one is asking you to perform. And this is exactly what it prepares you for — the wedding day, where the best photographs come from the moments no one orchestrated.
The other thing it gives you is familiarity. After an hour and a half walking through Paris with me, the camera stops being a problem. You stop thinking about it. And that is the condition for every photograph that matters.
The city
The Marais works at almost any time of day because the streets are narrow and the light bounces between walls. The small side streets off the Rue de Bretagne or the quiet end of the Île Saint-Louis have a scale that makes photographs feel intimate rather than monumental. It is a place that asks very little of you — you simply have to be there, and Paris does the rest.
There is a specific hour in the late afternoon, usually between five and seven depending on the season, when the light on the Seine does something it does nowhere else in the city. It flattens and warms, the water picks it up, and everything along the quays turns the same shade of amber. We plan the session so that the Seine moment happens in this window — it is not guaranteed, but when it arrives, it is unmistakable.
Most people know Montmartre crowded. Before the first tourists arrive, it is something else entirely. The cobblestones are still wet from the night, the light comes in low from the east and makes the stairways look like they belong in a different century. This is the version of Montmartre worth waking early for — and it lasts about ninety minutes before the spell breaks.
The best location is always the one that carries meaning. The café where you had your first date. The arrondissement where you lived when you first moved to Paris. The park where you spent Sunday mornings the year you got together. These places produce photographs that neither of us could have planned — because the history is already there, in how you move through the space. Tell us where it is and we will find the light within it.
The experience
01
We meet at the location. The first few minutes are always slightly awkward — that is normal and expected. We talk, we walk, I explain nothing about where to stand or what to do. The camera disappears into the background fairly quickly.
02
We spend forty-five minutes to an hour in the first location. I work around you rather than positioning you. If the light changes, we move. If something catches your attention, that is worth more than what I had planned.
03
If we have two locations, the walk between them is part of the session. Some of the most honest photographs happen when people think nothing is being captured — in transit, in conversation, waiting for a light to change.
04
By the last hour, something has usually shifted. You are less aware of the camera. The photographs start looking like you. This is the part of a session that matters most — and it is worth arriving at through the earlier, more awkward part.
Why it matters
Most people are not naturally comfortable being photographed. It takes time to stop performing and start being. An engagement session gives you that time before the wedding day — when you need to be fully present for other things. By the ceremony, the camera is already familiar.
Working together before the wedding means the wedding day is not the first time we have been in a room together. That matters more than it might seem. The trust that makes the best wedding photographs possible takes time to build — and an engagement session is how we build it.
Wedding photographs are of a single day. An engagement session gives you photographs of this time — the year you got engaged, the neighbourhood you lived in, the way you looked at each other before everything changed. Those photographs are their own thing, not a preview of the wedding.
Wedding photography in Paris is often constrained by the schedule of the day. An engagement session has no schedule — you can be at the Seine at exactly the right moment, in Montmartre before the city wakes. The city is different when you are not racing through it.
Packages
€350
€550
€750
Questions
An engagement session is a 1.5 to 3-hour photography session before your wedding day. We walk through Paris together — typically one or two locations — while I photograph you as you are, without posing. It is a chance to meet before the wedding, to get comfortable in front of the camera, and to have photographs that tell your story as a couple now, not only on the wedding day.
Most couples book the engagement session 3 to 6 months before the wedding. This gives enough time to edit and deliver the images and, if you wish, to use them for invitations or save-the-dates. That said, an engagement session is also enjoyable as a standalone session — not every couple books it in relation to a wedding.
The best location is the one that means something to you. If you have no strong preference, the Marais, the banks of the Seine at golden hour, and Montmartre before 8am are places that consistently give beautiful results. We discuss options during the booking call and I suggest a route based on your preferences and the season.
No. Despite the name, an engagement session is simply a couples session — anyone who wants photographs of themselves together in Paris can book one, whether they are engaged, married, or simply in love. The photography is the same. The term is just a convention.
A 1.5-hour session typically yields 60 to 90 edited images. A longer session (2.5 to 3 hours, two locations) will produce 100 to 150. All images are delivered as high-resolution JPEGs through a private online gallery within 3 weeks of the session.
Book your session
Tell us your preferred date, the neighbourhood that matters to you, and what you hope the session will give you. We'll confirm availability within 24 hours.