What Happens When it Rains During Your Engagement Session

When it’s calling for rain, a lot of photographers will reschedule the session. I don’t, unless that is something the client really wants. 

There are a couple of reasons for this. 

Primarily I don’t really believe in the concept of “bad” weather. Weather is simply a part of the adventure and mood of the shoot. 

Possibilities for weather in the mountains include: 

• Totally cloudless skies

• Cloud cover – ranging from a few wispy clouds to large puffy ones to totally overcast

• Rain – ranging from a light drizzle to a downpour 

• Fog – ranging from just in between the distant mountains to a complete whiteout

• Thunderstorms

• Snowy and icy (season dependent) 

• Wind ranging from gentle to downright blustery

The only weather conditions I really reschedule around are thunderstorms and occasionally ice, but that’s largely due to safety concerns. 

Instead we lean into the weather and embrace it – whatever it is that mother nature throws at us. The weather simply becomes part of the adventure. 

Speaking of safety, if it’s been raining a lot, often I will recommend shifting from a hike (if that’s what we had originally planned) to my Skyline Drive hop on hop off tour (where we visit my favorite overlooks along Skyline Drive). That’s because almost all of the summits I take clients to in Shenandoah are extremely rocky. And rocks are slippery when wet. The LAST thing we want is for you to be slipping and sliding at the top of a mountain!

Most of the time we “luck out” and skies are clear and the views are gorgeous. But occasionally it rains or is foggy or is an overcast day with little sunset. 

Charday and Spencer’s engagement session was one of those days.

It rained – a lot. And we got pretty darn wet. 

But I LOVE sessions like this. Because the point of an engagement session after all is to document your love. And doing so in semi-extreme weather can be incredibly playful and fun. It also means that spots that can be crowded on sunny days we often get to ourselves on wet ones. 

During their engagement session we pulled out some of my clear plastic umbrellas (I have many!) They kissed in the rain Notebook-style. Their dog joined in on the fun. And we laughed a LOT while running in and out of cars, getting warm, snuggling in blankets and just enjoying the day.