Planning to have your portraits taken in the winter is always a little tough-there are so many things to navigate. Here are some of our tips and tricks for planning your winter engagement or bridal session as well as some beautiful images from Emma and Jake’s winter Jordan Pines Campground engagement session.
All of our tips are aimed at giving you the best winter experience possible. We want to avoid getting wet, being freezing cold, or having to trudge through super deep snow.
Winter Engagement Session Tip #1: Hands, toes and noses are always the first things to get cold. We always suggest bringing hand/toe warmers if you know that you will get cold easily. Hand warmers can be used during a bridal session in the grooms pockets, and as you are holding your bouquet. These are great to have so that we can take warm up breaks as we are photographing your session.
Winter Engagement Session Tip #2: Bring comfortable boots and warm socks even if these are not the shoes you are wanting photographed. Walking between locations and wearing these while your feet aren’t showing will help you stay a lot warmer.
Winter Engagement Session Tip #3: Bring a blanket and warm beverage in the car so that as soon as you get in the car you can start warming up immediately. (One of our couples brought an electric blanket that could be plugged into the car. Genius!!)
Winter Engagement Session Tip #4: If you are planning a bridal session and your dress is not long sleeved/warm, bring along a friend who can hold a blanket or coat for you. This will allow you to warm up between portraits. We love a good white bridal coat (bonus points, we can take photos of you wearing that)!
Here are some photos from Emma and Jake’s winter Jordan Pines Campground engagement session.
Jordan Pines Campground is a very highly requested location year round, but it is great in the winter! Even when the canyon has 100+ inches of snow, there is still a clear path to walk on, since so many people snow-shoe and cross country ski up to Donut Falls, right through Jordan Pines Campground.
A few things to note:
- Jordan Pines is located in Big Cottonwood Canyon, about 30 minutes from Salt Lake City, but the drive is totally worth it.
- The parking lot isn’t always plowed. In years with heavy snowfall it can be tough to find parking by the end of the season, because the parking area is used for excess plowing.
- Jordan Pines is easy to shoot at in the morning or evening, which alleviates a lot of the congestion at that location. On a clear day, our favorite time is sunrise. On a cloudy day like this one, we prefer early afternoon.
- Our favorite location to photograph at is about a 5-10 minute walk from the parking lot. We bring a changing tent so that you don’t have to walk it twice. 😉
