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.”
I always thought she was a dog.
Bur maybe horseface is a better description.
No FReeper should be that dedicated. :)
Back up to feckless and parse that.
A hairless man is ewww. I like my man to look like a man, not a little boy. The only reason I think a man should ever have his no hair on his chest or legs is if he's a swimmer or biker in competition.
I thought it was party hearty.
It's not new, though. I remember some girls like that when I was in 7th grade (about 1985). They were in my chorus class. We had a concert one night. Afterward, my dad made some comment about not knowing there were going to be prostitutes on stage.
A woman's most powerful weapon is a guy's imagination! ;-)
Thanks, I don't think it's possible to take a bad photo of the second girl. She's one of those people that the camera loves.
At least the dog looks healthy.
...the Rottweiler, I mean.
...the canine Rottweiler.
...the one on the right.
I agree, you don't have to show everything to be sexy. You don't have to show much at all to be sexy.
Thanks. I think there's a little bit of mystery to that photo that makes it both innocent and sensual. At least, that was my goal.
What do you want to bet she became a widow on her wedding night?
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