A good engagement session is a great predictor of wedding photography to come - so this is the perfect time for you to figure out if you really want to hire a particular photographer for your wedding.  A consultation, a quote and a gallery are not necessarily the best predictors of whether a photographer has the style or personality you’re looking for.  Wedding photography is likely the most money you will ever spend on photography in your life, so it’s wise to make sure you’ll get a good return on your investment.  Think of your initial consultation like the photographer’s audition, and a engagement session as a callback to make sure you really want to hire them.  An engagement session gives you an idea of how the photographer’s personality meshes with yours, how they’ll conduct a photo session, as well as give you a chance to get comfortable with your photographer.  Everybody’s pictures get better when they’re more comfortable with the person behind the camera - and this level of comfort will transfer to your wedding day. 

So sure, having an engagement session will help you know you made the right choice of photographer and make you more comfortable with your photographer for the big day.  But what can you do with the pictures taken during your engagement session?  Traditionally, engagement pictures are taken for newspaper announcements and for a nice picture to frame and place on the mantelpiece.  However, there are other options.  You can use your engagement pictures as the basis for a save-the-date announcement,  put together a guestbook featuring your engagement pictures along with other photos of you and your spouse-to-be, or even use them on a website for your wedding.