From pre-engagement and engagement shoots before the wedding to trash-the-dress shoots after, when it comes to a couple’s big day, every moment can be (and usually is) obsessively documented – and that doesn’t even include the 1000 or so shots snapped on the wedding day itself.
So, it was only a matter of time before the cameras were allowed into the after-party, the couple’s wedding night or, more correctly, the morning after the wedding night.
Yep. On top of all the things that go on before and during the wedding, more and more couples are opting to capture the intimacy of their first night as a married couple too – and the cameras are more than welcome.
While most of the photos we’ve seen are tasteful and cute even, others are hardly the conventional type of shot you’d expect to be hanging on a couple’s lounge room wall, let alone shown to the kids or grand kids. Of course, that depends on the couple’s personality and how much they wish to share.
But it is a great idea, a novel twist on the art of wedding photography that has changed so much over the past decade.
New Jersey-based photographer Michelle Jonné told The New York Daily News that her images (above) were inspired by the lusty range of Emporio Armani ads featuring David Beckham and wife, Victoria.
“We do it very sexy and implied,” she says.
“I wanted to do the shoots to show that [marriage] is happy … it’s sexy and it’s not over.”
One of her clients, PR executive Inna Shamis told the NY Daily News that, “The minute she told me, I thought “that is brilliant.”
“When you get married, you’re in the best shape of your life and why not have these memories?”
Though she and her hubby were initially shy, Inna says they quickly built a trust in and rapport with Michelle and felt freer. The couple is so happy with the result, they intend to, one day, share them with their children.
“I wouldn’t show this to them at the age of 10,” admit Shamis, “but when they’re older and can understand it. It’s their parents looking artistic … not at all pornography.”
Most morning-after wedding photography isn’t actually done the morning after. That’s too private a time. So, it’s usually organised for a few days after the wedding or after the couple return from their honeymoon, either in a hotel room or the couple’s own bed.
Melissa Squires, who runs Detroid based A Girl in Love Photography, however, says that it’s not about being raunchy and that they’re more a reminder of that “bliss feeling of being a newlywed.”
“The feeling I try to capture is closeness,” says Melissa, “That lovely calm and happiness one feels when they realize it’s for real, now they are really husband and wife.”
