Entertainment

Wedding wows!

For her wedding photos, Delia Nelson hired photographer Shea Roggio to capture this fanciful moment on a ride in Wildwood, NJ. (
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When friends arrive for dinner at the home of Manhattan telecommunications manager Nicole D’Antuono-Hussain and her husband, Bill, they’re never stuck for conversation.

The huge canvas on the wall — a surreal photo of the couple embracing underwater in their wedding attire — is a guaranteed talking point.

“I always smile when I see it,” says D’Antuono-Hussain, who posed for the portrait in a swimming pool despite being terrified about holding her breath for up to 15 seconds underwater. (She doesn’t swim.) “I remember all the nervous feelings going into it. I’ll never do it again, but it’s great to have.”

Like a growing number of style-conscious newlyweds, she jumped on a new trend in wedding photography — the heavily produced, art-directed photo shoot that would easily fit into the pages of Vogue.

The fad went viral this week when spectacular pictures of Baltimore Raven Joe Flacco’s big day surfaced on the Internet, featuring the Super Bowl hopeful and his bride, Dana Grady, in a series of choreographed poses.

One shows the hulking quarterback swigging Champagne as he barks instructions to the groomsmen as his offensive line, with Grady as the center. Another has the wedding party in 3-D glasses screaming their heads off and tossing popcorn as they watch a horror flick in a movie theater.

“Joe arranged the entire thing,” says Flacco’s Wilmington, Del.-based photographer Jason Prezant, recalling the hectic three-hour shoot between the ceremony and the reception in 2011. “They wanted to have a lot of fun and really stamp their personalities on their wedding album.”

The wacky poses are no surprise to wedding expert Abby Larson, editor and founder of stylemepretty.com, who scours thousands of pictures every week as inspiration for her blog.

She has seen everything from bridesmaids dressed up as burlesque circus performers to the bride and groom posing in grotesque animal masks.

“These days, it’s all about the unexpected,” says Larson. “Brides are older these days and have been to more weddings than you can shake a stick at. They’re tired of anything that feels cookie-cutter.”

Formal lineups are out, documentary-style photography is fading in popularity and quirky is definitely in.

“They want one-of-a-kind art for their homes, which they can hang in a frame and have everyone talk about thereafter,” Larson says.

And then there’s the element of one-upmanship.

“Everyone wants their wedding to be the one that’s remembered,” adds Larson. “Whatever they can do to take it up a notch, they’ll do.”