'k.

So first, go do an image search for "wedding photobomb." You'll find it. It comes up a lot. It's been on Comedy Central, it's been on Huffington Post, it's been in a thousand shitty blogs, it's been in ten thousand shitty clickspam lists.

Next, take a gander. I really did take the shot, and I took lots of others.

Finally, know that it's not "naked dudes" it's my wife and some of her friends.

It leaked onto the internet 'cuz I was shooting the shit, bored, on Reddit's IRC channel while bored and lonely away from my wife and somehow wedding photos came up. I uploaded this and somebody I knew asked if she could use it for karma. I said "fuck it, sure." At that point, I had sent it to a few friends and a couple photography contests that rejected it without comment.

Fuck photography contests, by the way.

Anyway. A few hours later I check the front page and voila.

archive.org has the deleted posts (long story, crazy stalker, dont' want to get into it right now), but the story is this:

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She can't. She doesn't know it. Gallimaufry is learning this the same time as everyone else.

So first things first. The title is technically true. That is one of my exes, and she was surprised. As guesses go, Gallimaufry wasn't far off.

The girl in the wedding dress (call her Mary) is a dear friend of mine. She was actually the first girl I fooled around with in college. The naked girl furthest on the right (call her Trixie) is my wife; at the time she was my girlfriend. Back when Mary and I were making out, Mary and Trixie shared a room in the dorm. Trixie was actually the first person I met in college; she gave me my dorm key.

This group of girls - there's maybe eight of them - enjoy each other's company very much. And some of them are more adventuresome than others. One of them legally changed her middle name to "Danger" (that part isn't a euphemism - she went to the courthouse and everything and convinced another friend to change her middle name to "Action"). And when the first one (Bonnie) got married, Danger decided that it would be fun to streak the wedding. Bonnie, after all, had been her best friend since they were four.

And everybody loved it. They're hippies, pretty easy-going, and they thought it was hilarious. Thus began the tradition of streaking each others' weddings. Mary's wedding was the fifth, I believe. It was the only traditional wedding (Episcopalian) in the mix. And Mary is a dear, sweet, marvelous girl; she tries really really hard to be a good Christian but she falters from time to time. Her freshman year she petitioned the residence council to remove the condom machines from the dorms; her sophomore year she got knocked up because she couldn't find a condom. Her son is great; Trixie actually moved out of the dorms and in with Mary to help raise him. Mary Jr. had two moms until he was three. He's in 8th grade now. Jesus.

The morning of the wedding, Mary mentioned loudly and vociferously that nobody better streak her wedding. And she mentioned it to anyone within earshot. And she couldn't keep the dimples off her face when she did it. It was abundantly clear that she'd be positively crushed if her wedding wasn't streaked. So Danger, Trixie, Mercedes and some random dude who thought it would be fun obliged.

I am not in the picture. I took the picture. Amusingly enough, the girls had never streaked a wedding where anyone had a decent camera. At the time of this wedding, however, I was rollin' a Nikon F5 with a 70-210 F/2.8 ED zoom. A little background: The lady holding Mary's waist is the preacher's wife. The girl whose nose you can barely see is Mary's sister. The girl next to her, pointing, is Mary's cousin. The large thing in a T-shirt with his back to the camera? I have no idea. There were a lot of out-of-town folx.

Mary is most assuredly smiling. It made her day. They streaked right after the "man and wife" part, to great effect. You'll notice her ears are pink; she's ecstatic. Everyone at the wedding had heard rumors of streaking and I think the whole God-fearing crowd would have been disappointed if the streakers never showed up. Mary, in their eyes, is a wild girl.

Proof, you say? I give you Proof.

Here's Mary and her new husband at the reception, about an hour later. They've had two boys since; my wife doula'd for both of them.

Here's Danger at the reception, her clothes back on.

And finally, the picture everyone is really looking for. The red gentleman was their accompaniment for the bachelor party. They thought he was pretty cool and ought to come with. You can see him in the original photo if you look. My wife is hauling him along.

Yes, there are more. No, you don't get to see them. Yes, I'm a lucky man, yes I know it.

I enjoyed telling that story. It's one of the photos I'm most proud of. Thanks to Gallimaufry for inadvertently giving me the excuse.

EDIT:

So I sent this link to the wife, Danger, Bonnie and Mary. So far only the wife has gotten back to me. Apparently I mixed up a few facts:

1) Only three weddings were streaked. A fourth girl, who I thought was the first, didn't in fact have her wedding streaked at all and she has no idea where I got the idea there were five (hint: I've been known to exaggerate for effect without even realizing it).

2) The first wedding streaked was my wife's (Trixie's), because Danger thought my wife's (first) wedding was entirely too stodgy and dull, and if they didn't streak it, they wouldn't have any fun for the rest of the day. Danger talked Bonnie and Mary into the assist. And I've seen my wife's first wedding shots; they're great. The photographer just had the good sense not to take any pictures of the streaking.

3) Danger, Trixie and Mary streaked Bonnie's wedding because Trixie wanted some payback. What I thought was the 1st streaking was, in fact, the 2nd. 4) Mary knew her wedding was likely to get streaked because Trixie's vendetta had not yet been satisfied.

That's right. My wife is a payback streaker. Fortunately, when we got married in May, all the participants are starting to feel their age and fear my lens (I subcontracted the photography to a friend). And it was a small wedding; only Mary was there, it was pouring down rain, and she'd had her third child a mere three months earlier so wasn't exactly feelin' the naked. Thus does this unfortunate cycle of vengeance come to a close...

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The girl in the veil teaches 8th grade. Her students bring the photo up from time to time. Every now and then, depending on when it's cresting, she uses it as her Facebook cover photo.