Life

What's With This NSFW Wedding Trend?

Can anyone explain to me why brides and bridesmaids hitching up their skirts and raising their arses to the wind is a wedding photo trend now? Because apparently it is, in fact, a thing according to College Humor...and I just don’t get it. Am I the only one?

I’m all for entertaining wedding photos — there are only so many “awwwww, look how sweet!” images most people can stand before you just kind of want to start gagging — but this trend baffles me. I’ll admit I kind of dig the burlesque-style one above — it looks like it fits both with the theme of the wedding and the personalities of its participants — but I can’t figure out if this is a concept that all these wedding parties seem to be dreaming up on their own, independently of one another, or whether it's a result of one photo inspiring another, which in turn inspires another, and so on down the line.

The bizarre thing is that there actually seem to be many different varieties of bare bum bridesmaids photos. Some, like this one that popped up on reddit over the weekend, are posed to look like the bridesmaids all accidentally got their skirts tucked into their underwear after a trip to the restroom:

While others, like this one, have more of an intentional “look how naughty we are!” feel:

I’m really happy that these ladies are so confident in the shapeliness of your behinds...but is a wedding really the time and the place for it? Eh. Maybe I’m just a big ol’ stick-in-the-mud. After all, it’s not my wedding, so it’s not really my place to say what any wedding party should or shouldn’t do. Maybe these photos create hilarious memories everyone will look on with fondness many years down the line.

Elite Daily asks the question, “Why did it take so long for wedding photographers to instruct the bridesmaids to show some skin? After all, these types of trends are all about being comfortable in your own skin.” I will say this — being comfortable in your own skin is one thing, but I’m sincerely hoping that these photos are the brides’ and bridesmaids’ ideas — not the photographers’. If we have learned anything from Terry Richardson, it’s that no one should ever feel pressured by a photographer to pose in a way with which they don’t feel comfortable. Also, I don’t know about you, but I would feel really, really weird about some random person with a camera asking me to lift up my skirt for them — especially at my wedding.

In any event, I’ll be somewhat interested to see whether this is one of those trends that sticks around and becomes a timeless piece of comedy, or whether it turns out to be one of those trends we all cringe at remembering in a few decades’ time.

Happy wedding season? Or something?

UPDATE: The good news is that this “trend” is apparently not of the “hot new” variety and more of the “eh, sometimes people do this and it’s been going on for a while” type. Cracked points out that some of the photos that were circulating when this “story” broke are a few years old; furthermore, one of them — the one with the pink bridesmaid dresses and the full moons — originates from a porn flick called Ass Galore (the link is incredibly NSFW, so consider yourselves warned). Whether it’s a fad or not, I still fall into the “well, I think it’s kind of weird, but if it works for you, then so be it” camp; if, however, you’re a little more offended by it, at least you can rest easy knowing that it’s not as widespread as it first looked. More about the story here.

Carry on!

Images: Imgur, Imgur, RocknRollBride, Imgur