It may sound ridiculous but growing numbers of women are doing just that. They are part of the trash the dress trend, where women hire a photographer to take beautiful, dramatic pictures of them essentially ruining their wedding dress shortly after the ceremony.
According to the New York Times, the trend started in 2005 when Las Vegas photographer John Michael Cooper began photographing his clients in extreme conditions. Apparently Cooper was inspired by fashion photography which long ago learned the merits of juxtaposing beautiful, couture garments with ugly, grungy or dirty settings. Cooper was bored by the same, cookie-cutter photos that every bride requests.
Why do the brides want it? Good question. Many superstitious people think that destroying your wedding dress is bad way to start a marriage. Maybe that’s why precisely why the modern bride chooses to trash the dress- it’s her little form of rebellion. Or maybe the bride really just wants gorgeous, dramatic photographs of herself which wouldn’t be out of place in the pages of W. Another option is that brides don’t like the idea of their dream dress sitting in their closet gathering dust.
What do you think? Would you ever trash the dress? Remember you would be paying your photographer extra for the photo shoot.
I am working on an in-depth reported piece on this trend, so any brides who are willing to be interviewed for the piece, please contact me at SJL446(at)nyu(dot)edu
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i think these pictures look really bad and not cool like they're supposed to. more importantly though, i think it's a huge waste of money and the time that went into making it, and if you really don't want to keep your dress - why can't you just donate it to a place that provides wedding dresses for people who can't afford new expensive ones?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hae-Joon re donating the dress. The pictures look so violent. Is that really the memory you want of what you wore on such a special day?
ReplyDeleteSome women use fabric from their wedding gown to make a christening/baptismal outfit for their future children which I think is a sweet, meaningful way of reusing your dress.
I don't think ALL the TTD photos are bad, nor are all of them as extreme as the photos you posted. However, I do not understand what these couples do with all the photos! There are engagement sessions, pre-wedding wedding-dress sessions, first-look photos, wedding photos, TTD photos ... where do you put all these pictures? Besides in an album that you rarely look at? I think you can only have so many pictures of yourself on display in your home at any one time. We already have a wall in our bedroom (where guests don't have to be clobbered over the head with the glory of our luvvv) that is dedicated to pictures of ourselves in various meaningful locales and it's pretty packed already. We'll have room for maybe two or three wedding pictures, so we don't need to go overboard with all these photoshoots.
ReplyDeleteFashion can be works of art and I think it's so insulting and wasteful to the designer to destroy all the craftsmanship that went into it. But I do think the pics look dramatic and interesting. But I cringe just thinking about all the labor that went into making and tailoring each of those dresses.
ReplyDeletei think it is simply stupid! if u get married & u are lucky enough 2 be, then maybe someday your child would want the dress, even if she didn't wear it, it still is special. my mom n dad got divorced when i was 5,....my mom still had her dress & i am 34, she was 22 and i was so happy that she let me have it, not 2 wear, but because even though my parent's got divorced, that meant s/thing 2 me, it meant that at one time, my mom and dad WERE married, & it was priceless to me!!!!!~~Holly
ReplyDeleteit also meant to me that even though they got a divorce, that at one time...they did LOVE eachother!!!!
ReplyDeleteAfter I had paid for the best part of my original wedding dress, which ended up not being fully made in the first place as the wedding got canceled I actually made the decision to trash the trash. I wanted dramatic and individual pictures of myself and my then to be husband. If I didn't do trash the dress, my plan was to cut the top part of it off and wear it as a top and to make the skirt part into two cushions. So no future child would have gotten to wear it or pine over it. At the end of the day it is the brides choice what she does with the dress. I don't personally see the trash the dress as a rebellion I see it more as a symbol that your love is true. Afterall you are only meant to wear your wedding dress once, why would you want to keep it in a dusty cupboard where it may eventually get trashed anyway from moth balls?
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