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Wedding pics for the brides who don't blush
The Sunday Times ^ | June 11, 2006 | John Harlow

Posted on 06/11/2006 3:14:42 AM PDT by MadIvan

WEDDING photography, once a restrained art, is becoming a risqué business. A growing number of American brides are marking their big day by commissioning portraits of themselves in raunchy poses and lingerie, writes John Harlow.

This month, when a quarter of America’s annual 2m weddings take place, brides’ parents are paying up to £6,000 for an “action photographer”, whose brief is to capture their daughter “accidentally” exposing sexy garters or her knickers.

The American wedding is changing fast. Traditionalists have already lamented a switch to homemade vows, such as “to stay together so long as we make each other laugh”, and a large-scale abandonment of white since Sarah Jessica Parker, the star of Sex and the City, got married in black.

The paparazzi-style wedding photographs are the latest shock to the establishment, although some clerics are going along with it.

Frank Ray, a Baptist minister in Tennessee, was the target of outrage when his bride published nuptial snaps of herself and her maids of honour dressed in plunging black leather bustiers on the internet. “It was fabulous fun, and something we shall always remember,” said the 58-year-old minister.

Wedding photographers say such pictures are becoming the rage across all sections of US society. Steven Gross, a Chicago photographer, said he had taken nearly 8,000 shots at a recent £100,000 wedding, but the most prominent one in the album was a close-up of bridal cleavage.

“Brides, and sometimes the groom, want to show off their gym-fit bodies,” said a spokesman for Equinox, a gym chain that offers a “wedding boot camp”.

Richard Albans, a photographer in Los Angeles, turned to wedding work after being punched by a Hollywood bodyguard.

“But I did not realise what today’s bride really wants: a true evocation of that moment when she was at her most sexually and socially powerful,” he said.

“She wants to remind her spouse why he married her. It was not just because she looked radiant in white — underneath she was downright dirty and dangerous in a black garter or red-sequinned bra.

“It’s more Las Vegas showgirl than blushing bride.”

One of his clients, who is marrying later this year, said she was planning on opening the doors to her bridal boudoir for three days before the main event. “I want a big book of photographs, showing everything from me flashing my boobs as I get dressed to my boyfriend having his chest waxed,” she said.

“It’s about intimacy, the real story, as well as silly fun.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: photos; risque; wedding
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To: I still care

"People have no concept what marriage is. They think its a romantic, exciting haze you live in to make yourself happy. No wonder there are so many divorces."


Exactly.

There is nothing, I mean nothing, tackier than people who use the occasion of a sacred ceremony (such as marriage) to make a spectacle of themselves. They're confusing being at the center of a social institution with being the center of attention, a la Paris Hilton. What abysmal way to bring up a daughter.


101 posted on 06/11/2006 10:07:59 AM PDT by CaliGirlGodHelpMe
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To: ErnBatavia
Enough. Enough. Uncle. Uncle
102 posted on 06/11/2006 10:08:52 AM PDT by sully777 (wWBBD: What would Brian Boitano do?)
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To: sully777


White Trash wedding in Jail.

http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/articles/page162methkiss.html


103 posted on 06/11/2006 10:13:12 AM PDT by Blackirish
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To: ErnBatavia

104 posted on 06/11/2006 10:16:58 AM PDT by sully777 (wWBBD: What would Brian Boitano do?)
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To: Blackirish

Woman Pleads Guilty To Passing Meth During Wedding Vows???


105 posted on 06/11/2006 10:18:30 AM PDT by sully777 (wWBBD: What would Brian Boitano do?)
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To: ErnBatavia


The garter belt moment part II
106 posted on 06/11/2006 10:23:08 AM PDT by sully777 (wWBBD: What would Brian Boitano do?)
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To: sully777

Looks like the studio was cold.


107 posted on 06/11/2006 10:29:11 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows (Pray for peace, prepare for war.)
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To: Richard Kimball

Great pictures Richard! The young lady in the bottom shot looks sooooooo young, hard to believe she old enough to tie the knot. Maybe it's the sprinkle of freckles on her sweet face that gives that impression, or maybe it's that I'm getting very old. LOL!


108 posted on 06/11/2006 10:34:49 AM PDT by Mila
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To: ErnBatavia
Thanks for sharing your wedding photos.

Long life and many grandchildren to comfort you both in your old age.

109 posted on 06/11/2006 10:39:45 AM PDT by battlegearboat
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To: Richard Kimball
I don't think you have to show everything to be sexy.

Photosymbolism tip from one of the Cialis commercials:
light house in the background.

I bet that would brighten up a wedding photoalbum!
110 posted on 06/11/2006 10:45:12 AM PDT by VOA
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To: ErnBatavia
They couldn't find a garter the right size. So they used this.

Which was handy, cuz they needed one fer th' truck!

111 posted on 06/11/2006 10:57:14 AM PDT by uglybiker (Don't blame me. I didn't make you stupid.)
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To: The_Victor

Hey! Where'd you get my wife's picture??


112 posted on 06/11/2006 11:08:43 AM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: ErnBatavia

As my mother "never say anything if you can't say something nice" would say -

How wonderful you two found each other.


113 posted on 06/11/2006 11:17:03 AM PDT by I still care ("Remember... for it is the doom of men that they forget" - Merlin, from Excalibur)
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To: CaliGirlGodHelpMe

"People have no concept what marriage is. They think its a romantic, exciting haze you live in to make yourself happy. No wonder there are so many divorces."


Exactly.

"There is nothing, I mean nothing, tackier than people who use the occasion of a sacred ceremony (such as marriage) to make a spectacle of themselves. They're confusing being at the center of a social institution with being the center of attention, a la Paris Hilton. What abysmal way to bring up a daughter."

A lot of this thing is one-upmanship - hate to say it ladies, but I know far too many of you who intend or intended to have a bigger, more lavish wedding than anyone else, and drove everyone around them to the brink with their obsession to do so.

There is nothing more fierce than an American woman who feels she has to better than her friends and family. NOTHING.


114 posted on 06/11/2006 11:25:31 AM PDT by ByDesign
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To: HungarianGypsy

The girls were bad, but , unfortunately, it was the boys that horrified us. Almost all of them wore make up, earings, and long, awful hair and scary looking black clothes. Creepy.


115 posted on 06/11/2006 1:03:13 PM PDT by REPANDPROUDOFIT
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To: REPANDPROUDOFIT
The girls were bad, but , unfortunately, it was the boys that horrified us. Almost all of them wore make up, earings, and long, awful hair and scary looking black clothes. Creepy.

You mean like Dennis Rodman?

116 posted on 06/11/2006 4:03:07 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: sully777

Wait a sec--is that van Eyck's Marriage of Arnolfini...8^)


117 posted on 06/11/2006 4:09:40 PM PDT by rzeznikj at stout (ASCII and ye shall receive... (Computers 3:14))
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To: Old Professer

We alsways stated - party hardy - maybe it's a regional thing.


118 posted on 06/11/2006 4:30:18 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) !)
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To: uglybiker

Yup!


:)


119 posted on 06/11/2006 4:30:58 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) !)
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To: Old Professer

Hey, old perfesser. I just mean that part of what makes a wedding so deeply meaningful is its sublimated connection with reproduction. I believe this is universal and deep in our psyche.


120 posted on 06/11/2006 4:50:05 PM PDT by sgtyork (Prove to us that you can enforce the borders first.)
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