Sexy Morning-After Photos Capture Couples' Wedded Bliss

Aug. 24, 2012— -- There's boudoir photography and birthing photography. There's taking a photographer along to capture your vacation.

And now there's a steamy twist on wedding photographs.

They're called morning-after pictures, shot in newlyweds' bedrooms or hotel rooms where they have spent their first night as husband and wife. The bed is unmade.

"The idea is just to show a couple after their wedding day, you know, their most intimate moments," New Jersey-based photographer Michelle Jonne said. "You get in their home and, you know, we try to have fun, get playful and sexy and just kind of get everything all into one."

Jonne approached her friend Inna Shamis with the idea, knowing Shamis was about to get married.

"Why not?" Shamis said, describing her reaction. "When you're getting married ... you're in the best shape of your life."

Some of the images that came out of the shoot would strike many as downright racy, with the pair scantily clad and in provocative poses.

"I wouldn't say racy," Shamis said. "I would say very passionate, very sexy. ... I would never look at my dining room table the same, and we did some water shots in the shower, and those were a lot of fun."

Jonne said her images were far from pornographic.

"I want things fun, sexy, pillow fight in bed," she said. "I want tasteful."

Shamis said, "We are proud that we had Michelle capture these moments for us, these moments we'll cherish forever."

Such captured moments come at a steep price: A morning-after session can cost up to $650.

"I'm appalled by this whole thing," said Lesley Jane Seymour, editor-in-chief of More magazine. "I think it's just an incredibly sad statement of, is nothing private? ... There's something wrong that people need all this public adulation."

What's more, Seymour said, it's a perverse side effect of society's celebrity obsession.

"I've interviewed a bazillion and one celebrities, and they can tell you that's the part they hate about their lives. ... I can't understand why somebody wants to take the part celebrities hate and make it their lives."

But relationship expert Siggy Flicker, a recent bride herself, said not only are the photos harmless, they're healthy.

"What is appalling? I'm looking at two people the morning after their wedding, hugging or kissing -- beautiful pictures expressing the way that they feel about each other. ... In a marriage, when things aren't going well, there's nothing better than taking out these pictures and saying look at the way we were. Let's get back to this place."

Photographer Jonne echoed this idea of the photos' retrospective value.

"We want them to look back and have memories when they're 80 years old," she said. "You know what? We were great. We looked hot."