I loathe flash websites and strapless wedding gowns.

I thought I'd do a little research for my daughter among local wedding photographers, but turns out I don't have the patience for it. The sites all seem to be on this "flash" kick - when you land on the home pages everything starts to load and swirl and even though I have a fast internet connection I can't stick with it - I "back out" of the site. (Just learned this term at a 'Search Engine Optimization' meetup.)

At least once I'd like to

1. See the picture gallery at my own speed;
   
   
2. Be able to see what the photographer is charging.

Is that so much to ask?

I noticed there was a wedding photographer "sponsoring" a local bridal vendors event (about which, perhaps more later). I complained to him about his swirling, flashing, slow-loading site. He responded: everybody is doing it.

"Everybody is doing it" doesn't make it right. For instance, all the bridal magazines this year are pushing mostly strapless wedding gowns. I point out to my daughter:

• There is complicated machinery inside these bodices supporting the body inside, machinery so unyielding and baroque that boning shows through all the furbelows;
  
  
• The girls inside those dresses are yearning to hitch them up. Even when they can keep their hands off, the thought bubbles over their heads are loud and clear: "I wish I could hitch up this dress" "I wonder if the photographer is going to get a picture of this dress sagging";
  
  
• A person is not going to want to boogie vigorously in such a heavily engineered contraption

It reminds me of the days when there was an "in" color scheme for any given retail year, and if you didn't happen to like chartreuse or denim or whatever, you just had to wait a year.

Shop at thrift stores, which accumulate the refuse of all the years, and avoid the problem.