It doesn't look like golden hour to me based on the shadows on their faces. More like 2-3 hours before sunset.
This is all good to know. Is metering pretty common with couples of different skin tones? I am darker than my fiancé but he usually has a pretty good base tan. Our engagement photos are pretty good. He doesn't look washed out and I don't look orange. Here's hoping we can pull it together for the wedding!
I can point you toward a good podcast on different metering modes if you're interested, but the short answer is that there are better ways to meter in the light conditions they were working with.
I never knew about that! Might explain why I look absolutely alabaster in our engagement photos (taken on a cloudy day) and he looks like a normal human.
Converting a bad photo to black and white can make it passable. If you look closely at those, both are really grainy, probably because the photographer underexposed and then tried to recover details in post. I don't think she nailed focus, either.
I'm willing to bet the OP heard someone mention that they had their own engagement shoot at "5pm, you know... golden hour!" and that resulted in OP thinking 5pm is magic regardless of time of the year.
If I were that photographer, I would have scheduled this shoot earlier too. Golden hour doesn't help if you're in a heavily shaded area.
The composition is different. The ones she likes are more close up, the couple pretty much filling the frame. Hers are not, and I think it contributes to the awkward feel they have.