I shot my first ever engagement session this Saturday. It was two friends of mine, who hired me to get some basic shots. They probably won't be getting any fancy prints, or an album, but I still did my damndest to give them the best I could. C & C welcome.

Lessons learned:
- always check all camera settings, and chimp on occasion (my WB wasn't set correctly on the 1DIII, and for some of the shots the WB doesn't appear to be recoverable, resulting in either a cross-processed look, or having to go monochrome with the shots; I didn't shoot RAW with the III because I didn't have enough memory, only 6GB total, soon to rectified)
- it is in fact possible to bring too much gear
- having an assistant, especially an experienced one, is a very good thing (I didn't)
- thankfully the "golden hour" seems to last a good bit longer than an hour, at least here, at this time of the year
- having a folder with pictures of the poses you'd like from the couple is a very good thing (uhh, again, I didn't)
- and last but not least, always check all camera settings :-[

Anywhoo, here are some of my favorite pics, not tweaked, just put together quickly for my clients. The heavy processing will come later (I welcome ideas/suggestions on this as well):









The rest of the faves: http://mkfotos.com/albums/JE/

The clients picked this one pic as their favorite, so I did a mockup of several versions of 8 X 10's for them: http://mkfotos.com/albums/JEfinal/

The one they ended up picking is very nice.

The first one in your above post seems to have the focus on the scenery behind the couple.

I know how you feel about settings... nothing better then having taking a ton of pics since the you came in from outside at a wedding and you forgot to adjust for indoor conditions. DOH! An assistant (wife in my case) is certainly a lifesaver.

nice job, I like the second one best. I agree on all points, For E-shoots I usually bring a small bag, my 30D and XTi. My wife is a huge help as she comes along and gives an extra eye for poses and shot locations.