“When a girl left her parents’ house to be married, she was making an enormous transition,” Wallace says. “The wedding celebration was to help her negotiate the change. Now very often there is no functional difference between marriage and living together.” And some of the new emphasis on sexuality is an effort to mark the occasion in a new way. Shannon McLaughlin, 25, a freelance illustrator in Philadelphia, did a boudoir shoot for her groom in part because after six years (five of which they lived together), she’d run out of romantic gift ideas. She also thought it might be good for her, too. She’d read on wedding Web sites that it was a freeing experience. “I figured it couldn’t be all that special,” she says. “It’s just a woman taking photos with some skimpy clothes on. But that isn’t the case at all. When I saw the photos, I gained self-confidence and realized I’m way too hard on myself.” McLaughlin even posted the photos on Weddingbee.com, where she got about 70 comments telling her how great she looked. “It took a lot of courage for me to share the photos,” she says, “although I did crop them so my father wouldn’t have a heart attack.”