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 Americas 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 todays 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.
Its 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.
Its about intimacy, the real story, as well as silly fun.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Okay, I'm not seeing the problem here. Sounds like excellent advice.
Is the photog going to video the wedding night too? That's the logical consumation of the trend
***
She was a "go'ah" eh? Say no more, say no more...
Really, what's next? The "Traditional Honeymoon Porn Film" that you can distribute to friends? I really shouldn't post this because someone may start up a business.
And stop posting "Monty Python" material. You know what happens when you encourage us...
If that's why he married her, she may be in trouble after 10-15 years and a couple of children....
odd, I thought she loved me
Is the photog going to video the wedding night too? That's the logical consumation of the trend
IIRC, a left coast ice-skater-turned-knee-capper did that years ago.
Cheers,
OLA
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Well, there it is. The reason to get married is all about me... Damn the institution. Damn tradition. Damn any sense of modesty. The real thing is to use the institution to focus attention on yourself.
barf alert.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
Could be why Americans are having fewer kids...The guys are afraid to take their clothes off...
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
"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."
What "Baptist minister" would say "It was fabulous fun"?
Whatever. I can tell you that the wedding was a blur and a rush, just like I wanted it to be. I was in a hurry to get her home so I could take all that bra and garter stuff off! Just gets in the way...
I'm surprised The Times couldn't find any wierdo wedding stories to do in good ol' BGI.
Have you ever sat in a Mall over there and watched the horrow show go by? We were eating in a McDonalds right next to the mall theatre. Many of the teens looked like they belong in the zoo. I know we have a lot of our own weirdos, but I was astonished at the number of really awful looking kids that went by in just the half hour we were eating. No one looked "normal".
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