Flashback Friday: Engagement pictures

I happen to really like the somewhat-exclusive-to-Mormonism practice of including a photo of the engaged couple with the wedding announcements. It just makes so much sense in a situation where anyone invited to the reception is likely to personally know either the bride or the groom but not both.

Back when Jeremy and I had our engagement photos taken, it wasn't like these days where every other person has a reasonably nice camera. We paid a friend of Jeremy's a paltry sum to take us to the grounds of the mental institution in Provo (true story) and snap a few photos. Then we chose the best ones to send out with our wedding invitations. We ended up having two favorites, so some invitations included one and some included the other.

Here are the two we chose:

Here are a couple from the reject pile - nothing too horrible, thank goodness.

SUN IN MY EYES and terrible shadows. Ugh.

The soft focus just goes to show that 2001 was not as far removed from the 90s as we would like to think it was.

This one makes me laugh. It seems like the tree is tearing our relationship apart.

My favorite outtake is this one:

because this is Jeremy and no engagement photo shoot would be complete without a complete joke of a picture.

Since going through the process ourselves nine years ago, I have seen some truly amazing engagement photos as well as some truly gag-worthy ones. I think the worst I ever saw was a picture of the engaged couple touching tongues. Fortunately, this was not someone I personally knew (it was an acquaintance of a friend), which is just as well because if you think touching tongues in your engagement pictures is acceptable, then we are not friends anymore. Sorry.

What gems have you seen, and should we have gone with the bearded engagement photo after all??