Trash it.

So, I am trashing the dress. This Saturday.

For those of you unfamiliar with this trend, I encourage you to visit trashthedress.com, or to Google it. Many, many photographers and former brides are doing fabulous things with these types of photo shoots.

Here is a YouTube video:


Me? Well, I'm only doing it because I don't have to pay for it. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to justify spending the money on more pictures of myself in my wedding dress.

Several months back, before I even got married, a photographer in Toronto put a notice on her blog that she was looking for brides to photograph for an artistic series she is doing. I sent an e-mail with my photo, and I heard back from her right away, saying she wanted to photograph me. All summer, I waited to hear from her to schedule the shoot, and I started to wonder whether it was actually going to happen. A couple of weeks ago, she e-mailed me to try to set up something for fall.

And so I will go on Saturday, drive up to Toronto to be a model for 6-8 hours. Actually sounds pretty fun, right? I'm excited to see how things come about. She has shared some of her plans for locations, and it sounds like it could be pretty amazing.

When all is said and done, I get all of the high-res photos on DVD, so it's a nice deal. I model for free, but have the benefit of getting to wear my dress one more time, and also get the photos.

I'm a little bit anxious about what will happen with my dress. I haven't had it professionally cleaned yet, so I plan to do so shortly after this shoot. While there is part of me that doesn't care about the dress--not ever going to wear it again, it wasn't that expensive, etc.--there is also part of me that definitely doesn't want it RUINED. From what I hear from other "trash the dress" brides, they actually do come clean. So here's hoping. Also, I talked to my mom over the weekend, and she mentioned that my dress is already looking pretty trashed as it is. It got pretty filthy at my reception, and I guess that over time, the stains have become more and more noticeable. Luckily, the photographer said this isn't a problem--most spots probably won't even show in the photos, and if they do, they can be photoshopped out.

So stay tuned... I'm definitely going to be sharing photos here once I get them back. (I'm thinking it could be a while since I'm not a paying client--these are photos she is doing for her own portfolio/show piece, and I'm sure editing them will get pushed to the bottom of her priorities for a while!)

In the meantime, if you did a trash the dress session... leave a link to your photos in the comments in you have them up somewhere. I'd love to see them, and maybe some of the people who still visit this blog would, too. :)