Yes. Use your engagement photos for save the dates — that is the single most useful thing an engagement session does for you, and it is the reason I push every couple to shoot one whether they book me for it or not. In seventeen years of shooting weddings around Los Angeles I have never once had a couple tell me they regretted having a good horizontal frame of the two of them ready to hand to a stationer. I have had plenty tell me they regretted scrambling for one in December with a June wedding on the books.

So the question isn't really whether. It's when, and which frames, and whether your photographer shot anything that survives being cropped into a 5x7 card with your names printed across it. Most don't think about that part. I do, and here's how it works.

The short answer has a calendar attached to it

Save the dates go in the mail 6 to 8 months before a local wedding, and 8 to 12 months if you have guests flying in or a destination weekend. Work backwards from that and the whole thing schedules itself:

  • Mail date: 6–8 months out (say, November for a June wedding).
  • Cards at your door: 2–3 weeks before you mail, because printers are slow in October and November.
  • Photos in your hands: 2–3 weeks after the shoot. That's my standard turnaround for an engagement gallery, and it does not speed up because a stationer is waiting.
  • The shoot itself: roughly 10 to 12 weeks before you want to mail.
  • Booking the shoot: another 6 to 8 weeks of lead time if you want a Saturday golden hour in spring or fall, because those slots go first.

Add it up and you are booking your engagement session something like five months before your save the dates hit mailboxes. Couples hear that and their eyes get wide. It's fine — it just means that if you got engaged over the holidays and you're marrying the following fall, you should be shooting in the spring, not "sometime this summer when things calm down." Things do not calm down. I've watched that sentence eat four months of runway more times than I can count. My longer breakdown of when to schedule engagement photos walks through the seasonal version of this if your date is unusual.

I'll be blunt: the crop ruins more save the dates than the photos do

Here's the thing almost nobody tells you at a consultation. A save the date is a horizontal card, usually 5x7, and roughly a third of it is going to be covered in type — your names, the date, the city, a "formal invitation to follow." That's a lot of real estate taken out of a picture that was composed as a full frame.

If your photographer shot the entire session tight and vertical, which is what looks best on Instagram and what most people default to, you will open your gallery with 70 beautiful images and not one that works on a card. Your stationer will crop your foreheads off, or drop the type over your faces, or float your names in a busy patch of bougainvillea where they're unreadable. I've been sent the proof and asked to "fix it" after the fact more times than I'd like.

So I shoot for the card on purpose. Somewhere in the middle of every session — usually right after the first twenty minutes, once people have stopped performing and started actually standing like themselves — I stop and say, "these next few are for your save the dates." Then I make three specific things:

  • A wide horizontal with dead space on one side. Couple pushed to the left or right third, clean sky or a clean wall filling the rest. That empty area is where your names go. It should be quiet, not interesting.
  • A full-width horizontal with headroom. Both of you centered, generous space above your heads, so the type can sit across the top without touching either of you.
  • A tight vertical for the back of the card, or for the website. Because a two-sided card is often the better design, and because you'll want one for the wedding website anyway.

Three frames. Maybe eight minutes of a ninety-minute session. That's the entire difference between a stationer having something to work with and a stationer emailing you at 10pm asking if there are "any other options."

What this actually costs in Los Angeles

An engagement session in LA runs somewhere between $300 and $900 as a standalone booking, with most of the market clustered around $450 to $650 for 90 minutes and a delivered gallery. If you're comparing quotes, my full breakdown of what engagement photos cost here gets into what changes the number. Two locations, a second outfit, or a Saturday sunset in May all push you toward the top of that band.

Plenty of photographers, including me, fold the session into a wedding collection rather than charging for it twice. That's usually the right move, and not only for the money. When the same person shoots your engagement session and your wedding, they've already learned which side of your face you like, whether you tense up when a lens comes close, and how the two of you actually touch each other when nobody's directing. At ConneryFilm we run photography and cinematic film out of the same shop with one team, so the engagement session doubles as the day my photo and video side both figure out how you move before there are 150 guests watching. Couples underrate how much that matters. I'd argue it's worth more than the discount.

The printing is its own line item and it's not small: expect $2.50 to $5.00 per card all-in for a decent 5x7 on real stock from Minted, Artifact Uprising or a local LA stationer, plus postage. For 120 households that's $400 to $600 before stamps. Budget for it now rather than discovering it in month seven.

Where to shoot if the card is the point

Some of my favorite LA locations photograph beautifully and make terrible save the dates, because they're visually loud. Vasquez Rocks is spectacular and there is nowhere clean to put type. The Arts District murals are the same problem in a different color. Gorgeous gallery, unusable card.

What works on a card is negative space. Open sky. A long stretch of ocean. A plain stucco wall. Specifically, around here:

  • El Matador or Leo Carrillo in Malibu, shooting west into open water about 45 minutes before sunset. The sky does the work and it's the easiest clean space in the county. Get there early; parking at El Matador is genuinely difficult after 4pm on weekends.
  • The bluffs above Palos Verdes, where you can put the couple low in the frame and let the horizon sit behind them.
  • Griffith Observatory's east lawn in the last half hour of light, with the city falling away. The parking is a mess and you'll walk, but the sky panel is unbeatable.
  • Echo Park Lake on a weekday evening, which gives you water and palms and, if you angle right, a big flat area of sky.

One honest warning about light. Golden hour in Los Angeles is not an hour. It's closer to 25 usable minutes, and downtown or anywhere with tall buildings it's shorter still, because the sun disappears behind a structure long before it reaches the horizon. If you booked a session for "6pm-ish" in October and your photographer isn't already telling you the exact minute the sun sets at that spot, that's a flag. I pick the time first and the location second, always. There's more on this in my notes on choosing an engagement photo location.

What I'd do if it were my wedding

I'd shoot one session, early, at one location, ninety minutes, an hour before sunset on a weekday. I'd tell the photographer up front that save the dates are the deliverable, not a nice byproduct. I'd ask for the gallery in two and a half weeks and I'd pick the card image within 48 hours of getting it, because the longer that sits the more opinions get involved and the less the decision improves.

And I'd use the same images on the invitation suite later, which works fine and looks intentional — I've written separately about using engagement photos on wedding invitations, and the short version is that reusing one strong frame across the suite reads as a designed set rather than as laziness. Nobody is auditing you for photographic variety.

The one thing I would not do is book a second, separate "save the date shoot." I get asked about this every year. You don't need it. A properly run 90-minute session produces the 40 to 80 images you actually need, and three of them are horizontals made for a card. That's enough. Spending another $600 to re-solve a solved problem is the kind of thing that feels productive in month three of planning and looks silly in month nine.

Questions couples actually ask me

Do we have to use a photo at all on a save the date?

No, and text-only cards can look sharp. But photo save the dates get stuck on refrigerators and stay there for eight months, which is exactly the behavior you want from a card whose only job is to make people hold a date. I'd use the photo.

Can we use a phone photo from the proposal instead?

Sometimes, if it was shot in good light and you're printing small. The failure point is resolution: a 5x7 at 300 dpi needs roughly 1500 x 2100 pixels of real image data after cropping, and a phone frame that's been through a messaging app twice will not have it. Ask your printer to check the file before you commit to 120 cards.

How many images should we send the stationer?

Three to five. Not thirty. Give them one clear favorite and two alternates in different orientations, and let them design. Sending a designer your whole gallery guarantees a slower, worse card.

What if we shoot before we've locked the venue?

That's completely fine, and honestly common. Your save the date only needs the date and the city — "Los Angeles, California" covers you. Venue details belong on the invitation, which goes out 8 to 10 weeks before the wedding anyway.

Should the engagement photos match the wedding's look?

They should rhyme with it, not match it. If your wedding is black-tie at a downtown hotel, a beach session in linen will feel disconnected on the card. If it's a backyard in Ojai, don't shoot a rooftop in formalwear. Beyond that, relax — guests are not cross-referencing.

Can we get a short video from the same session?

Yes, and more couples are doing it — a 20-second vertical clip for the wedding website or an announcement post, shot alongside the stills. Because we run photo and film together, that's usually a matter of one extra person on the same call time rather than a separate booking and a separate date.

If you're working out your own timeline — when to shoot, when to print, when to mail — I'm happy to talk it through even if you're still comparing photographers. Call or text 818.749.7039 and tell me your wedding date, and I'll tell you the week you should be shooting. You can see recent engagement and wedding work at ConneryFilm.com, and if you want photography and a cinematic film handled by one team, that's exactly what we do.

Meet the Author: Connery Davoodian Hello, I'm Connery Davoodian, the visionary behind ConneryFilm, and I'm thrilled to share insights from my 17-year journey through the world of wedding photography and videography. My passion extends beyond simply capturing images; it's about artfully weaving your unique love story into a timeless, cinematic masterpiece. My artistic path began long before I ever picked up a camera, deeply rooted in music as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. This diverse background in directing, producing, and editing has cultivated a unique perspective, allowing me to approach each wedding not just as an event, but as a dynamic narrative waiting to be beautifully told. This blend of technical mastery and creative storytelling is the heartbeat of ConneryFilm, ensuring that every frame, every shot, and every film is infused with depth, emotion, and unparalleled artistic integrity. At ConneryFilm, we believe your wedding memories deserve nothing less than bespoke luxury. My philosophy centers on capturing the authentic, unscripted moments – the genuine smiles, the tender glances, the joyful laughter – that truly define your day. While we obsess over exquisite details and sophisticated aesthetics, our true joy comes from making you feel completely at ease, like a "friendor" who genuinely celebrates alongside you. This calm, organized presence allows your true personalities to shine, resulting in images and films that are as real and vibrant as your love itself. Based in the heart of Los Angeles, California, my team and I are privileged to serve couples across the globe, bringing our signature high-end wedding photography and videography to destination weddings worldwide. Through these blog posts, I aim to share invaluable insights, luxurious inspiration, and practical, fun advice to guide you through your wedding planning journey, helping you make informed decisions about preserving your most cherished moments. Thank you for trusting ConneryFilm to be a part of your extraordinary adventure. I'm excited to share my knowledge and passion with you, helping you create memories that will last forever.