We recently had our pre-wedding photos taken.
最近拍了婚纱照。
To be honest, the idea of "pre-wedding photos" was something I viscerally rejected. In my original understanding, the mainstream East Asian style—where people are stuffed into extravagant costumes that don’t belong to them—felt filled with a sense of hollow absurdity.
说实话，这原本是我生理性排斥的东西。在我原本的认知里，那种东亚主流的、把人硬塞进不属于自己的华服里的婚纱照，充满了虚无的滑稽感。
Whenever I see such photos, a specific scene sticks in my mind: a pathetic, delusional old bachelor in a village, fantasizing over a photo of the local widow. That act of pretending to possess a certain life by "cosplaying" as aristocracy for a day—it feels pathetic just thinking about it.
每当看到这种照片，我脑海里总挥不去一个画面：一个村里的老光棍，五十多岁了，像极了孔乙己，对着村头漂亮寡妇的照片在那儿意淫。那种试图通过 Cosplay 一天“上流社会”来假装自己拥有了某种生活的行为，想想就觉得可怜。
So, I set a principle for myself: If we’re going to do it, we do something that looks like "us." At the very least, we choose places we’ve actually been, wear clothes that fit our style, and strike poses that we actually do—gestures that feel authentic to our personalities and how we interact.
所以我给自己定了个原则：要拍，就拍点像我自己的东西。最起码要选自己去过的地点，穿符合自己风格的衣服，做我们真正做过的动作——那些对我们的性格和相处模式来说 make sense 的姿态。
This rejection has existed for a long time, but what really made me think systematically about it was a casual chat with relatives earlier this year.
这种排斥感由来已久，但真正让我开始系统性思考这件事的，是上半年在家时和亲戚的一次闲聊。
"We're going to LA in August for our pre-wedding photos."
“我们八月去 LA 拍婚纱照。”
"How do Americans take pre-wedding photos?"
“美国人婚纱照怎么拍？”
"Americans don't take pre-wedding photos."
“美国人不拍婚纱照。”
"Wait, isn't this a Western tradition?"
“这不是西方传进来的东西吗？”
I want to be clear: Allison is not a radical feminist. On the contrary, she grew up as a victim in a typical, stifling East Asian patriarchal family.
我要先说清楚，Allison 不是什么激进的女权主义者。相反，她是在一个典型且沉重的东亚父权家庭中长大的受害者。
She was indeed deeply influenced by the narrative of "favoring sons over daughters." Sometimes she subconsciously defends this narrative, while at other times she feels guilty about her impulse to stand up and say "no" to the patriarchy. Because of this, she lives in extreme contradiction: chronically suppressed, she feels an instinctive pain towards this false "compensation mechanism."
她确实曾被那种“重男轻女”的叙事洗脑，有些时候会下意识地去维护这套叙事，另一些时候又会对自己想要站出来对父权说“不”的冲动感到内疚。正因如此，她处于一种极度的矛盾中：常年身处压抑，对这种虚假的“补偿机制”有着本能的痛感。
It is a sense of powerlessness—"knowing full well this is absurd, yet unable to resist." I understand this pain deeply—desperately wanting to scream at that inner self, yet only opening one's mouth with no sound coming out.
那就是一种“明明知道这件事情有些离谱，却又无法抗拒”的无力感。我非常理解这种痛苦——拼命想对内心深处的那个自己咆哮，却只是张大了嘴，发不出声音。
So, the photos we finally took were actually a compromise.
所以我们最终拍的那组照片，其实是一个折中的解决方案。
While researching the history of pre-wedding photography, as we clarified the context and approached the issue through the lens of "feminism," we stumbled upon Bonnie Adrian's book, Framing the Bride.
在查阅婚纱照历史的过程中，当我们把脉络理清，将矛头指向“女权”之时，无意间发现了 Bonnie Adrian 写的《Framing the Bride》（框住新娘）这本书。
The author conducted years of fieldwork in Taiwan around 2000. After skimming through it, I found her perspective coincided with our previous discussions, but I felt she only explained the "how" without touching the root cause—it felt like she barely scratched the surface.
作者在 2000 年左右于台湾做了多年的田野调查。我大概读了下之后，发现她的视角和我们之前的讨论不谋而合，但总觉得她只解释了 somehow，未触及根本，有些隔靴搔痒。
The book summarizes several core points:
First, the wedding day is extremely busy, ritual-heavy, and elder-centered, leaving the bride no time to experience "romance";
Second, expensive pre-wedding albums are meant for display at the banquet entrance, a form of "conspicuous consumption" to show off the couple's wealth and status;
Third, in a traditional patriarchal society, women are expected to shoulder more domestic roles after marriage, and the pre-wedding shoot offers a "her-centered," final "moment of glory" before stepping into married life.
书里概括了几个核心观点：
第一，婚礼当天极其忙碌、注重礼节、以家庭长辈为中心，新娘没有时间体验“浪漫”；
第二，昂贵的婚纱照相册是为了在宴会入口展示，是一种“炫耀性消费”，展示新人的财力和地位；
第三，在传统父权制社会中，女性在婚后可能需要更多地承担家庭角色，而婚纱照拍摄提供了一个“以她为中心”的、在步入婚姻前最后的高光仪式。
I partially agree with her views, but I take significant issue with the first point. Points one and three are essentially the same thing—they are both results of patriarchy.
我部分认同她的观点，但对第一点有很大意见，一三本质上其实是一回事——它们都是父权制的结果。
Why is the bride "too busy" on her wedding day? Because in the traditional patriarchal narrative, a wedding is not a celebration for the couple, but a public declaration of the groom's family's sovereignty. Those tedious rituals exist solely to reinforce this declaration of ownership.
为什么婚礼当天新娘没空？因为在传统的父权叙事里，婚礼根本不是两个人的庆典，而是男方家族宣誓主权的广播。那些繁冗的仪式感，就是为了加强这种主权宣誓。
The wedding itself is the funeral of the bride's freedom.
婚礼本身，就是一场新娘自由的葬礼。
After that day, the bride's "self" effectively dies; she becomes someone's wife, someone's daughter-in-law, someone's mother. That is why society tacitly allows the existence of this monstrosity called "pre-wedding photos."
在那一天之后，新娘的“自我”将彻底死亡，她将成为谁的妻子、谁的儿媳、谁的母亲。所以，社会才默许了“婚纱照”这个怪胎的存在。
It is a "last meal before execution." Before a woman is completely reduced to a domestic accessory and loses herself, the patriarchy shows mercy. It allows this poor soul to play the protagonist in a vacuum, to enjoy a fleeting, fake "highlight moment," so she can accept her fate willingly.
这是一种“处刑前的断头饭”。在女性彻底沦为家庭附庸、失去自我之前，父权制大发慈悲，允许这个可怜人在这个真空中，扮演一次主角，享受一次虚假的“高光时刻”，然后心甘情愿地死去。
Following this logic, I reached an interesting conclusion: The "Cosplay Index" of pre-wedding photos is actually a reverse indicator of regional feminist progress.
顺着这个逻辑，我得出了一个很有意思的推论： 婚纱照的“Cosplay 指数”，其实是一个地区女权主义发展进度的反向指标。
The more you need to play a role that doesn't belong to you—whether it's a princess in a European court or a warlord's concubine from the 1920s; the more you need to simulate a "wealth" and "privilege" you don't possess, the more it reveals how suppressed your status is and how deprived your true "self" is in reality.
在一张照片里，你越需要扮演一个不属于自己的角色——无论是欧洲宫廷的公主，还是民国军阀的姨太太；你越需要通过扮演并不存在的“富有”和“特权”来获得满足感，就说明在现实生活中的地位越压抑，自我越匮乏。
Precisely because reality lacks dignity for the individual, one needs this "fake highlight"—existing only in heavily photoshopped images—to fill the void.
正是因为现实不够精彩，正是因为现实中没有作为独立个体的尊严，所以才需要这仅有一天的、仅存于精修照片里的“虚假高光”来填补空虚。
But what I find most absurd—even stupid—is a growing voice trying to rationalize this Cosplay-style photography using "feminism" as an excuse.
但最让我觉得荒诞，甚至可以说是愚蠢的，是现在竟然有一种声音，利用“女权”作为理由，去合理化这种 Cosplay 式的婚纱照。
They shout slogans like "Love yourself," "Embrace the ritual," and "I deserve the best," forcefully packaging this "one-day princess experience"—a charity from the patriarchy meant to numb women—as a symbol of female independence.
她们高喊着“爱自己”、“要有仪式感”、“老娘值得最好的”，把这种父权制施舍的、用来麻痹女性的“一日公主体验”，硬生生包装成了女性独立的象征。
This is like a caged bird treating a handful of premium feed from its master as proof that it can fly. How is this feminism? This is kneeling to thank the patriarchy for its poisoned candy.
这就像是笼子里的鸟，把主人偶尔喂的一口精饲料，当成了自己飞翔的证明。这哪里是女权？这是对着父权制的糖衣炮弹跪地谢恩。
In the end, we simply walked quietly back into our old days:
最后，我们只是安静地走回了自己的旧时光里：
We went to the OSU campus where we first fell in love;
去了我们当年谈恋爱的 OSU 校园；
We went to the beaches in LA where we used to just veg out on weekends;
去了 LA 周末我们经常去躺平的沙滩；
We went to the observatory where we often watched the stars at night;
去了夜晚常去看星星的天文台；
We also went to a city hall—although it wasn't the one where we officially got married, in this ritual, it made the whole story complete.
还去了一个政府大楼，虽然并不是我们真正领证的那个，但在这个仪式里，它让整个故事完整了。
These photos are dedicated to the young and innocent versions of us back then, and to the versions of us who will eventually grow old.
这组照片，送给彼时青涩的我们，和终将老去的我们。
To the past, and to the future.
致过去，也致未来。
