Engagement Photos and Gender Roles
23 Jun
In a little less than a week Deborah and I are going to meet up with our fabulous photographer, Katherine O’Brien in Austin to have our engagement photos done! Both being theatrical people, we lurve photos. And even better than loving to ham it up in front of the camera, we don’t have that many photos of the the two of us looking decent at the exact same time! Since it is hotter than @#$! in Texas these days, we are starting at 9am and hoping to avoid the massive heatwave of awful that invades around noon. Sweaty people don’t look that hot in photos (get it?! that hot– ahhhhahaha)
Anywho, Deborah and I don’t live close enough to Austin to get up at the ass crack of dawn to drive and not want to kill each other, so we are turning our engagement session into a mini-vacation and driving down the day before. I found this great B&B, the Park Lane Guest House on Purple Roofs, which is database for LGBT owned and LGBT friendly bed and breakfasts! Since we will be traveling, I emailed our photographer and asked her what we should bring with us for the photos. She replied promptly that it is best to bring something casual, something dressy and something that is just fun. Seems simple enough and yet, this is where everything gets complicated.
What constitutes dressy and casual for us is so drastically different that it is almost impossible to categorize. Deborah is pleased as punch to wear a long summer dress or a pair of Sofee shorts and a tank top around the house. If I’m not in my fancy teacher work pants, you will usually find me in leggings and a skirt or a pair of old workout pants covered with paint stains. So, casual means many things to us!
After perusing our closet and deeming nothing appropriate (aka an awesome excuse to go shopping), we set out to buy some new things for our little photo shoot. The casual was easy enough. Deborah and I both found some lovely summer dresses at Target and called it a day.
The dressy is where things went askew. Deborah found this gorgeous retro looking cocktail dress on sale at Macy’s. Of course, it fit her perfectly and only cost $20. I, of course, found nothing. Bridesmate and co-worker Beth and I went on three additional excursions searching for something ‘dressy’ that matched Deborah’s level of dressy. Nada.
Finally, I said, “Maybe I could rock a vest with some fancy shirt and pants?”. Beth nodded and agreed that I would look smokin’ hot and the photos would be super cute, but added “Don’t you think that’ll make you look a little butch?” and I deflated. It sort of would and then I got pissy– but not at Beth, she made a good point. I got mad that because the idea of me wearing pants in our engagement photo would automatically make me the ‘male’ in our relationship. Because I happen to rock layered outfits means I’m clearly the ‘dude’. What is that?!
J and I have “argued” over who gets to be the “guy” which is weird now that I think about it because neither of us is butch.
Our engagement pictures were the first time I had purchased a dress since high school. I felt pressure that dressing up meant wearing a dress and I thought I wouldn’t look the same level as fanciness if J wore a dress and I didn’t. I think the wedding has made me more comfortable with being girly, though pink is still a long way off.
I totally know where you are coming from! Rock an outfit that makes you comfortable and tell us all about how your weekend goes!
You hit the nail on the head, Michelle! Alex and I come up against this most times when we’re needing to get ‘dressed up,’ particularly with her mum and a few family members. Since she was 13, Alex has worn TWO dresses (one time each) and she looks smokin’ hot in a button-up or vest or suit–and yet neither of us ever sees her as ‘butch’ or ‘masculine.’ I’m not gonna lie and say it didn’t cross our minds in our wedding planning that she was wearing a suit, me a dress, and which side of the altar to stand on, but the bottom line is that neither of FEEL like she’s ‘butch.’ There’s so much more that’s feminine about a person than whether or not you’re in a dress or a vest–and you’re gonna rock (and not look *that hot*) in whatever you wear!
Ever since announcing our engagement, everyone has asked who is wearing the pants. You can’t make this up. I completely understand the idea – while I’m very fond of wearing a vest at work, I immediately dismissed wearing one for our engagement shots because I didn’t want to seem butch.
We tell all of our couples prior to their shoot to simply be themselves and not worry about roles (we also take care to not enforce unwanted roles during the shoot). If you love wearing vests, wear a vest! Maybe you’re ‘butch’, maybe you’re not, but really who’s judging?
Great story! My fiancee doesn’t want to fit into any defined role either. That made it tough for her to decide what she wanted to wear to our wedding. She has an idea now, but the hard part comes next, shopping.
My fiancee and I talked about this with engagement pictures too! Neither of us is at all butch, but I didn’t want to wear a skirt in the engagement pictures because I didn’t want my legs to show. We basically decided that this meant she couldn’t wear a skirt either, and we ended up both wearing jeans and sweaters. But the real advice is wear whatever makes you think you look good together as a couple!
See, I got the opposite. My wife is boyish (soft-butch?) and hasn’t worn a dress since she was 4, except for once as a bridesmaid for her Aunt (and there were tears). There was no question that she would be wearing pants at our wedding. And she did, and all was cool. But before hand, nearly everyone asked me if she’d be wearing a dress. I thought it was the strangest question, the idea of her being a dress seems as laughable as the idea of a groom rocking up in a dress.
We didn’t have official engagement pics, but if we did, I’d wear a dress, and she’d wear pants. One thing we did do, though, with our wedding pics was really get the photographers to ignore gender roles. The bride normally is at the front, with the groom in the back, behind the bride, in a lot of pics. For ours, I put my wife up front, and “hid” behind her in a lot of them. We were both brides!
Hmmm…. this is a lot of food for thought! Women can look sexy as hell in pants, for one. Greta Garbo? Yes. I am very femme and I wore a tux with a black chemise once. Even my mom loved it. So you could femme up your outfit, and maybe the way you style your hair. My soft butch girlfriend wears a little eye shadow and mascara sometimes and it brings out her features subtly and beautifully.
Secondly, as a photographer I would highly (but gently!) suggest changing the time of your session! I learned several years ago from an amazing teacher that the best light of the day is near sunrise or sunset. About two hours prior to sunset is when we begin all of our e-sessions. Yes, it’s warm but not that much more so than it will be at 9:30am when your session is underway. By 10am the sun will be high and harsh in the sky, so unless you can stay in the shade you could end up with uneven shadows on your faces or uneven light in the background.
Austin is an awesome place for photos, I’d love to see you get the most out of the experience!