On Swans and Doves

I’ve sat through enough wedding albums to spot the pattern: white doves, someone in a carriage, the cake-cutting moment. The same three shots, different faces. There’s a reason people don’t pull out wedding photos at parties anymore—they’re all the same, and they’re boring as hell.

Meanwhile, Russian couples are out here on swans, dressed as horses, posed behind absolutely wasted relatives. The photos look insane. And the thing is, insane is actually more honest than tasteful. A wedding should feel like something happened, not like you hired someone to execute a checklist.

The difference is permission, I think. One culture decided weddings had to be elegant and proper, so every photo looks like an insurance commercial. The other one said, Let’s just go completely fucking nuts, and the pictures actually feel alive. They’re terrible in the way that good memories are terrible—unflattering, chaotic, real.

I’m not saying Photoshop wedding backdrops are good aesthetic choices. They’re often hideous. But there’s something brave about choosing hideousness over blandness. You look at a Russian couple on a CGI swan and you know they made a decision. You look at the hundredth German wedding photo and you know they just did what they were supposed to do.

Tradition in one place means refinement. In another, it means you’re stuck with doves. Both are choices, I guess, but only one of them is fun to look at years later.