Mornings. Hope everyone had a sterling weekend. Welcome to the morning after the weekend.
Which is handy since the morning after is exactly what Sunday’s column was all about.
A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL
WHERE DID ALL OUR PRIVACY GO?
Do you want to know what the hottest new trend is amongst those people who care what the hottest new trends are? I hope you manage to keep your breakfast down till the end of this one. It’s wedding photographs taken the morning after the wedding and then posted on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, your space and anybody else’s space who’s willing to look at them.
Wedding photos have always been big business. Every year the masses spend somewhere in the region of Jacob Zuma’s home improvements budget capturing every single moment of the most important day of their lives, in black and white, full colour, sepia, landscape and portrait, so that they can remember it forever.
So why not the first morning after the most important day of their lives too?
In a whole new take on crazy, newlyweds are inviting photographers into the honeymoon suite the morning after, to snap some pretty raunchy shots. We’re talking rumpled sheets, the happy couple in a steamy shower, even a trail of wedding clothes leading from an empty bottle of champagne all the way to the King-Goodwill-Zwelethini-Sized Bed. All designed to showcase how much hot-hot, wild newlywed sex the couple had after their wedding.
You’re married, you’re happy, things are awesome. We get it.
Although the reality is probably slightly different. Chances are that by the time Mr and Mrs Ate Too Much Cake, Drank Too Much Champagne And Did The Macarena make it back to their suite, they’re so exhausted they can barely speak. There’s the whole carrying the bride over the threshold thing (a good wedding dress will add at least ten kilos). Then it takes an hour and a half to get out of the intricate ensemble that the bride designed herself, with all those buttons, tucks and laces. At the end of all of that the couple is maybe squeezing in a missionary position quickie before they collapse into an exhausted sleep in those million percale sheets. Only to wake up with a bit of a hangover, really bad breath, quite a lot of left over mascara, sore feet and that ever so slight tinge of disappointment that comes once the day you’ve been waiting your entire life for has passed.
If photographing and sharing first moments as a Mr. and Mrs. is what we’re doing right now, how about photos after your first big argument as a married couple? That would be hot, all throwing things at each other, pointing fingers and shouting.
Or what about the first time you carry the shopping in from the car, or vacuum the lounge? Someone call a photographer, the dishwasher needs offloading. Well if we’re documenting firsts these are all the things that need to go on the record. Because unless we photograph things and share them with the world, how will anyone ever know that they really happened?
That Caesar Salad you had for lunch, if you don’t Twitpic it, it never happened, everyone knows that. You don’t expect us to just take your word for it, do you? Don’t be ridiculous, this is 2012, we need proof. Unfortunately the only thing this doesn’t work with is chocolate cake, I tried it. Whether you photograph it or not, your thighs still know you ate it.
I suppose my real question here is, do you think all those Mrs Newlyweds out there having these sexy, glamorous morning after photos taken would have really bounded out of bed and put on a full face of make-up and a pair of six-inch screw-me heels the morning after their wedding, and would Mr Newlywed have shaved and worn his good underpants if there hadn’t been a photographer turning up on their hotel suite doorstep at nine am? Or would they just have shlumped around together in their comfy pants and ordered up some pancakes and bacon.
It’s not just the loss of privacy that concerns me here; it’s the loss of reality too. I’m wearing my concerned face about this, but since there’s nobody here to take a picture of it and post it to social media, chances are you probably won’t believe me.
