Trash the Dress

There is one element that stands out in virtually every wedding picture -- and that's the wedding dress! I married my husband only four months ago, so I still recall the shock of the first time I googled "wedding dress". The sheer vastness of the wedding dress industry is a marvel, and like any group trying desperately to assert itself as a vital part of society, they have developed a detailed jargon as a way to legitimize their absurd claims of authority.

Not only, I learned, do you need a dress, but you have to be intimately familiar with types of closures, silhouettes, measuring terminology, a vast array of various undergarments, skirt fullness, fabric, stitching, hems, lace, and beading, not to mention knowing the ins and outs of "your body type". Are you pear-shaped? Oval? Lollipop? Apple? Hourglass? Do you have wide or narrow shoulders? What is your hip-waist ratio? What is the length from the indentation in your throat to the floor? (I'm serious-- I was asked this several times by dress boutiques).

Simply figuring out what piece of fruit you are (Banana? Pomegranate? Kiwiano?) is enough to make you want to stick your head in a bucket and wear said bucket for the wedding. Plus, you are informed, you must preserve your dress in acid-free paper after having it dry-cleaned with rare chemicals obtained from a volcano in Peru, all so that in twenty-five years your daughter can laugh hysterically when you offer to let her wear your preserved dress. "Oh, mother, " she'll say, "That's so old fashioned." And off she'll go to the bridal boutique to buy a sequined wedding bikini and furry moon-boots for $20,000. (I predict fashion-trends on the side).

So, what's a girl to do? You got married, you have this.. thing in your closet, and if you ever try to wear it again, people will speak in hushed tones about how 'special' you are. Right?

Well, maybe not!

One thing I've always loved are "Trash the Dress" sessions, or "TTD". Ever since I've been interested in photography, I've seen these photos and loved the idea. A fabulous site to check out is Trash the Dress Australia. There you can see some pictures from various TTD sessions. Before I got married, and victimized by the wedding dress industrial machine, I though they were simply beautiful and unique wedding photos, uncommon but not terribly remarkable. (Photo by cavanaghphotography.com ).

After, however, I realized what a psychological burden the dress is. So much time spent picking out, trying on, measuring, measuring again, trying on again, keeping it clean, neat, unwrinkled (not that I succeeded in any of those things, but that's beside the point). After all that attention paid to not offending the sensibilities of this inanimate object, it must be wonderful to lay down on a rock and stick some dirt in your hair, or wade into the ocean, wearing that dress and laughing. As a result, of course, the photos are much more intimate and gritty than the ones taken at the wedding, and they can pack a real aesthetic punch.

Now, I would love to trash my dress, just for the sake of fabulous pictures, but my focus right now is more on creating those pictures than being in them. Doing a TTD session for someone would be so much fun, and there's so much room for creativity. I'm thinking about offering this as a new service, and I can't wait to give it a shot (no pun intended).

Any ladies out there, who have that dress hanging in the closet, mocking you... want to trash it? I'll do my first Trash the Dress session for free -- email me if you want to exorcise that dress-demon, and get some awesome pictures to boot!