Weddings Gone Sleazy

This piece is titled "Brides Gone Wild" -- but it should have been called "Brides Gone Sleazy." It's about a new trend wherein brides are photographed in graphic or risque poses before their weddings.

And it marks, as if anyone needed to, the fact that weddings are increasingly not truly religious ceremonies marking the marriage of a man and a woman before God, but rather, just an excuse for a long-cohabiting couple to throw a big party while the bride plays "queen for a day."

The piece reads in part:

[M]any independent-minded brides are poking fun at so many white bouquets and demure poses. "Being like a virgin is very different than being a virgin," says Julie Albright, a marriage therapist and sociology professor at the University of Southern California. For the many brides who have been living with their fiances for years before taking the leap, mugging for risque shots can be a way of playing up the irony of donning a traditional dress. "The white gown and veil is a kind of performance or drag -- like Madonna in her video for 'Like a Virgin.'"

If it's become nothing more than a "performance" or "drag," it might make sense for brides to skip the traditional ceremony and just throw a big bash for themselves and their friends.