CERTAINLY, there are picturesque indoor places to take wedding portraits in the cold of a Philadelphia winter: the central staircase of the Art Museum, for instance, or Fairmount Park Horticultural Center.

But Leann Greto was looking for "something interesting - something I haven't seen before, something that had meaning to me."

So, when her wedding photographer suggested a SEPTA subway stop - that's correct, a subway stop - Greto, 27, was immediately intrigued.

The contrast between the stark industrial background and the formal wedding gown appealed to the arty fashionista, who's a buyer for Anthropologie and a former designer for Urban Outfitters.

She also loves, yup, SEPTA.

Greto and her friends started traveling to Center City on the Regional Rail from Ridley Park when she was 13.

"And you probably shouldn't print this, but we stole the R2 sign from one of the trains and one of my friends hung it up in her room," she recalled, with a laugh.

"We thought it was supercool."

Indeed, SEPTA is one of the reasons Greto moved into the Bella Vista section of South Philadelphia when she was 18 - mass transit made it so easy to get around.

Her fiance, Matthew Ashby, 26, also grew up taking SEPTA into town from his Yardley home.

So when the photographer suggested the SEPTA idea over the telephone to Greto, she turned and repeated it to Ashby - who agreed without hesitation.

He loved the idea.

Her mother? Not so much.

"I was stunned," said Deborah Greto.

Needless to say, it's not what she fantasized for her only daughter's wedding day.

Sure, the couple was having a traditional wedding with 175 guests at a catering hall, ice sculpture and all (even if it was of their dog, Toshi.)

But, wedding photos that would last forever, in a subway stop?

"I really thought of a gritty, grimy subway, kind of, and I was a little horrified," Leann's mom said.

And who could blame her?