Click the play button on the video window to the see the storyAt a recent bridal show in the Phoenix Convention Center there was one booth that stood out for its large, banner-sized pictures of women who were nearly naked.
One featured a woman with a man’s tie wrapped around her neck, and nothing else.
The photographer
Kate Wall explained they are “boudoir” photos.
They are sexy snapshots of a bride-to-be in revealing lingerie that would be given as a gift for her fiancé.
The popular on-line wedding resource site
The Knot reports Boudoir Photography is a growing trend.
“We’ve seen a ton of women coming in and doing these shoots since the fall, so really since late 2008 it’s really been a high trend,” explained Sara Cruz-Mora.
She is the co-owner of
Brides for Brides Photography in Phoenix.
The company typically shoots weddings and found over the past few months more and more women began asking if they also did boudoir-style photo shoots.
“So as 2009 has rolled in, especially with Valentine’s Day around the corner, we’ve just seen a big, big, response, this is so popular with our brides.”
“I kind of had butterflies in my stomach in the beginning,” confessed Amanda Acuna moments before her photo shoot at the Brides for Brides Studio.
Sipping on a mimosa Acuna said she wanted to bare-all because, “being newly engaged I thought this would be a perfect gift for Valentine’s Day, something he would treasure forever.”
“It’s about capturing the beauty in each woman,” said Cruz-Mora
She also described it as “liberating, letting loose of what you are supposed to do”.
Marriage Therapist
Brigitte Wangberg agreed.
She said the racy photos might be gaining popularity because they allow women to just be women.
They allow them to shed their various roles in the real world and just feel like a sexy pin-up girl.
“What we are realizing now is its important to take care of ourselves, who we are, what’s going to make us feel good.”
She said photographers capture the women’s inner beauty, they see them as beautiful which in tern helps the women see themselves in a positive light.
“So I think these photographs are a great way for women to say I am beautiful even if I wear a suit all day or a jacket all day that has a label on it, I’m a beautiful woman and I can express that.”
Acuna said she is a nurse, spending most of her days in frumpy scrubs.
During the photo shoot she instead wore a naught-nurse outfit that included fishnets and four-inch heels.
The photo session includes a make-up artist and hair stylist.
While sitting in a satin robe, her long hair perfectly curled, her eyelids dusted with smoky black eye shadow and adorned with thick fake eyelashes, Acuna said, “I do feel much sexier, and it’s nice to have make-up and the hair to go along with it.”
But not all relationships have a happy ending.
A jilted lover could post the private pictures on a social-networking website like Facebook sending your derrière to the World Wide Web.
“He’s not going to share them with anyone,” stated Acuna.
When asked if she was sure she said, “I’m sure, he better not”.
Wangberg also doesn’t think an ex-fiancé or ex-husband would share them because they wouldn’t want another man lusting for what was once theirs.
“Men aren’t going to want other men to see you because these woman are going to look beautiful in these photos and they won’t want to share that with someone else.”
With more celebrities like Jennifer Anniston posing semi-nude on magazine covers, the images have lost their shock-value.
What was once considered controversial has now become commonplace.
“The media nowadays everything is about sex and so it’s nice to be kinda part of that,” said Acuna, “just have a real sense of being like a model almost.”
