Engagement photos

You can do your engagement photos whenever you want! We did our first set about 6 weeks before our original wedding date (we postponed due to COVID and ended up doing a second set just for fun), but often times, people take them early on in wedding planning so they can use the photos in their Save The Dates. It's also a good way to do a trial run with a photographer - if you like the photos, then book the photographer for your wedding. If not, find another photographer and do a set of engagement photos. Some photographers will also include engagement photos in the package if you book them for your wedding. So once you find a photographer, talk with them about what you envision for your engagement photos (beach photos in the summer, or snow photos in winter, or during fall with colorful leaves, or indoors at a coffee shop, etc), and they'll setup the session for a time that makes sense.

I'd recommend taking them close to when you get engaged. That way the excitement is still new, you're still used to showing off your ring, etc.

I got engaged in January of 2020, and we were planning to take our engagement pictures that spring, but then COVID hit so we pulled the plug on trying to schedule anything. We didn't end up taking ours until this past May. They were still great and we had a blast, but at first it was weird showing off a ring I'd been wearing for 2 years already, and I think I would have been more starry-eyed about getting engaged in spring of 2020 (it probably wouldn't have hurt if the world hadn't turned upside down either lol).

Like Lisa mentioned, you could always do another set of pictures closer to your date too, but this way you'd have pictures to use for your website, save-the-dates, etc.

I would discuss with your photographer! We sent ours out 6 months from the wedding with our photographer rushing our album to us within a week to place the order for the save the dates. On average I think they get sent out anywhere from 10-6 months before the wedding 💕