The short answer is maybe not!
As an experienced wedding & portrait photographer, I'm here to tell you it might not be the worst thing ever if you have a rainy or overcast forecast for the day you've scheduled your engagement photos! It might actually be a good thing!
When choosing which locations to pose you in next, your photographer should be taking into account where the sun is & how it will make you look in photos. If it's an overcast day, the clouds pretty much take that limiting factor away! You can go anywhere & still get beautiful images & a consistently lit gallery!
Today I'll be using Tobi & Eli's beautiful spring engagement session as an example of why you might want to keep your schedule & get your photos taken on an overcast day!
This pretty spot by this stream would have been super difficult to photograph had the sun been out shining brightly - we could have made it work, but I would have had to work a lot harder to pose them! The sun was to the left front of Tobi & Eli and if it was fully shining, it would have been really harsh on their left cheeks & cast terrible shadows across the right side of their faces. But here with lots of clouds covering the sun, there is nice even light that allowed me to pose them however I liked without worrying about harsh sun spots or shadows!
The same concept applied here, there is no way we could have done these poses on this bridge without the sun blaring onto Eli's face. If you look closely, you tell that the clouds started to part just a little and give a sunny glow to his face, but the clouds still covered the sun well enough that it didn't matter. Having an overcast day truly does open up the location and posing combos you can have at your engagement session!
This next spot with Tobi & Eli sitting on the rocks would have been actually impossible had it not been an overcast day! The sun would have been bearing down on them in full force here. In theory, on a sunny day I could pose them on the opposite side of the rocks with their backs to the sun - except I never would have done that, because posing them that direction would have made a parking lot for a baseball field the background.. I don't know about you, but that isn't my ideal background for my engagement photos. Facing them this direction gave us a nice, clean grassy area as our background, which helps keep their beautiful smiling faces & love the center of attention!
If you haven't caught on yet, the theme of this blog post is how I couldn't have posed my couple in these locations this way if it hadn't been overcast.. and you guessed it, that statement applied for this set of images too!
Of course the engagement sessions & wedding days where the sun is glowing just perfectly in the background always hold a special place in my little photographer heart. BUT I have to say, some of my favorite images I've taken were on overcast, gloomy days! The freedom to put my clients wherever is prettiest, in whatever poses I want, just sets my creativity on fire!!
I will end with this - if you're worried your engagement photos won't come back beautiful because it wasn't a beautiful day, worry not. Let Tobi & Eli's session prove to you that gorgeous images can still be delivered on not so gorgeous days!
