Trash the Dress - The Beach

Our first location probably ate up 2.5-3 hours of time.

The entire time (no lie) we were inside of the brick factory, I had to pee sooo badly. Seriously, every time we moved or I had to get into different positions, I was dying. And I felt so bad for Judy and Darsi because they had to put up with me complaining about it. I tried not to be too annoying, but my god, it was torture. And hey, I still did everything they asked. Well, until the end of location #1.

The original plan was to spend some time around and/or in the ponds surrounding the brick factory, but there were no restrooms available and there was no possible way I could wait any longer. So they took me to the nearest Wendy's.

(I can't even tell you how funny I felt walking in there. Here I am, wearing a wedding dress with a zip-up sweatshirt over it, with like an inch of makeup on my face. Walking into Wendy's. I'm convinced customers thought I was some kind of hooker. But I digress.)

After the bathroom break, Judy and Darsi decided that since we were already in the car, there was no point in going back to the brick factory. Instead, we'd take a detour and go to a completely different location--the beach.

Oddly enough, the beach seemed to be at least 5 degrees warmer in temperature. In the brick factory, I was freezing. On the beach? It was cold, but not as cold.


It was a lot more comfortable, too. Lying in nice, cushy sand (as opposed to brick walls, beams, and scrap metal)? No problem.

As I was lying in the sand to get shots like the above, I saw something coming toward me out of the corner of my eye. I look, and there is this dog, running down the beach at full speed, coming right at me. Behind her, her owner, screaming, "Tasha! Tasha!!" and then, to us, "WATCH OUT! She's going to try to kiss youuuuu!!!"

Too late. I had time to sit up, thankfully, but there Tasha was, jumping up on me and kissing my face. After she attacked me with her tongue, Darsi got the brunt of it. She was trying to speak (or scream) or something when the dog jumped up on her and managed to french kiss her a bit. No, I'm not kidding.

It was hilarious. All of us were laughing, and Judy kept snapping. Eventually, Tasha's owner caught up to her and managed to get her attention to call her back. She apologized profusely.

Still laughing.

And then? Tasha decided to turn around to come back for Round 2. Here is my "OH NO!" look. But Tasha's second attempt was thwarted as her owner managed to wrangle her.

And then I had the giggles. Could not stop laughing at the replay in my head.

OK. Back to business.

An old lifeguard shelter on the beach. The weathered steps were very cool. And whoops, I just noticed you can see my flip flops in this shot. I'm surprised Judy didn't photoshop them out. I guess maybe they add to it since it's the beach? :)

Then we moved right down near the water.

I like this one.

Putting an old lifeguard stand to good use. Bride--to the rescue!

Time for a little nap.

If everything had gone according to plan, I would have actually gotten into the water after this. But in the end, we all agreed that it was too cold (I'm pretty convinced I would have come out with hypothermia).

I'm actually really glad that I didn't get in the water. I don't think my dress would have been ruined or anything like that, but it would have been a bigger pain in the ass to haul home and take care of.

Now, I'm just trying to decide what to do with my dress. I need to get it cleaned, but am not sure whether I should go with a local place (can't find any recommendations!) or ship it off to Wed Clean. I need to figure it out soon, given that my dress is currently hanging in the entryway of our house. What to do, what to do...

Trash the Dress - Brick Factory

Over the weekend, I got my trash the dress photos back from the photographer. Some pretty cool shots. I'm glad I did it, just for fun. Not sure I'll actually ever do anything with any of these pictures (aside from showing them to all of you), so I'm also kind of glad it wasn't something I actually paid for.

Anyway, I got more than 600 photos back--it was insane to try to look through them all. They've been narrowed down, but I'm still going to split them into two posts for the two locations--first for the abandoned brick factory, and then for the beach.

The brick factory was such a cool location. Every time we took another couple of steps, Judy found yet another goldmine in terms of backdrops.



Umm, yeah. With this one? I was definitely afraid that old green door (that was merely balancing on a pile of scrap metal) was going to fall and cause me to land on my head. That would have made an interesting trip to the emergency room. But alas, I stayed safe. And my boobs stayed in place, too. Praise the lord.

Rickety old catwalks, all still standing. Pretty amazing.

Cold beam. COLD.

These shots with the broken down brick wall are some of my favorites of the day.

An old red chair that just happened to be sitting there. You honestly could not have set up things this cool.

This last one was clearly an old manager's office or something. All of the drywall was broken off and/or deteriorated, but there was still old office furniture up there.

I will post the beach ones later...

Trash the Dress - Preview

Well, we didn't really trash the dress. As Judy, the photographer, said--it was more like "celebrate" the dress. And we did.

Judy just e-mailed me with some preview photos. Weeeee! She made sure to say, "These aren't even some of the best ones... I figured I'd save those for later." So now I'm really curious as to what they all look like. But I'll share the teasers with you. Photos are copyright of Judy Cormier at Elementz of Fotographie.

To tell you a little bit about the shoot as I take you through the pics...

It was a lot of fun. When I got there, Judy had a makeup artist ready to do my makeup for the shoot. Judy wanted it to be dramatic, so that's what she did. It was pretty funny to catch glimpses of myself in a mirror now and then. I don't wear a lot of makeup so it was like I wasn't even looking at myself.

We started off in an old, abandoned brick factory in Toronto. We sorta had to sneak in through an opening in a fence--which was a challenge in a wedding dress--and down this short, steep hill into a makeshift entrance at one of the corners of the building. As soon as Darsi (Judy's assistant) stuck her head inside, she was like "Oh my god!!" (Judy and Darsi had never actually been inside before. They had only heard it was cool.) At first, I didn't know if that reaction was a good or bad thing. As it turned out, it was good.

There was graffiti everywhere, which made for some interesting backdrops. All of the catwalks and kilns and such were all still standing, so I was all over the place in there for different poses.

At one point, when I was up on the catwalk, something happened to catch my eye on the far wall. Someone had actually spray painted "TRASH THE DRESS" in big red letters. So apparently we weren't the first dress trashers to ever be in the brick factory. But of course we had to stop and take a few photos in front of it. Can't let a perfect backdrop like that go to waste.

They also played around a bit, using a video light and a grate/cage looking door. These ones are actually sorta dark (almost creepy!) looking. Very non-bridal. I like it.

Then I went down into one of the kilns (they were long and hallway-like), and she asked me to run. From an axe murderer. OK, she didn't say that, but doesn't it look like I'm maybe in some horror movie?

I think this next shot is from Judy's favorite location/pose of the day. Also in one of the kilns. The brick factory had these skylights all throughout, and in these shots, Judy used the natural light coming down from them.

I'll recap the rest later this week/next week when I have the rest of the photos. I think some of the stories will make more sense that way.