Engagement photographer in Bristol.

What an engagement photoshoot is.

Around an hour. Somewhere with personal meaning — the pub where you met, the riverbank where you got engaged, the kitchen you cook in on Sunday mornings, the lane behind your house. No props, no posing, no shot list. I follow you while you walk, talk, hold hands, sit on a wall.

You'll be photographed as you are, doing things you actually do. That's the whole brief.

Some couples call it a pre-wedding shoot, some an engagement photoshoot. It's the same hour either way: documentary photography before the day itself, so that by the wedding the camera is old news.

Why we do it.

Almost every couple I shoot tells me afterwards they were nervous about the engagement shoot and glad they did it. The first ten minutes are a bit strange. By the twenty-minute mark you forget I'm there. That muscle memory is the gift you give yourselves on the wedding morning: by the time the camera comes out, it doesn't feel like a camera anymore.

The pictures themselves are the bonus. The reason is the day itself.

Where we photograph in Bristol.

Most of these happen within half an hour of the city. The harbourside early, before it fills up. Leigh Woods and the Downs when you want trees and a long walk. Ashton Court on a flat winter afternoon. Clifton and the bridge, if the bridge actually means something to you. Troopers Hill for the last of the light over the rooftops.

None of that is a menu. If the place that matters is a kitchen in Bedminster or a field above the Chew Valley, we go there instead. Beyond the city I photograph engagement shoots across Bath, the Cotswolds, Somerset and South Wales, and further afield by arrangement.

The only thing I'm fussy about is timing — the hour before sunset does most of the work, so we build the walk around it.

What it costs.

Every wedding booking includes an engagement photoshoot. Not an add-on, not a line at the bottom of a quote — if I'm photographing your wedding, the shoot is already paid for, and we usually do it a month or two before the day.

If you're not booking a wedding with me — newly engaged and you just want the pictures, or an anniversary, or an hour of the two of you for its own sake — the same shoot is available on its own.

With a wedding booking

Included. Already in the price of every wedding, at no extra cost.

As a standalone photoshoot

£400 — the hour, the editing, and the gallery.

Travel beyond the South West is quoted upfront rather than buried in small print.

What to expect.

• About an hour on the day, plus a short chat beforehand to pick the location and the rough shape of it.
• Wear what you'd actually wear. No matching outfits, no styled shoot. If you usually live in jeans and a hoody, that's what shows up.
• I photograph as I would on a wedding day — quietly, mostly with a long lens, looking for the bits that happen between the bits you'd remember.
• Edited pictures delivered within a fortnight, in a private online gallery you can download and share.
• Included with every wedding booking. Available on its own too.