Trashing the dress- the trend is anything but new, but we still haven’t made up our minds. Is it classy or just…well, trashy?
One can argue that the act of trashing the dress is an art- a means to express the bride’s creative side. She can choose the theme of her trash the dress session- splattering her gown with paint, taking it for a swim in the river, or baking messy cupcakes in it. It’s HER dress and HER photo shoot. If she wants to ruin the dress, she better ruin it well and have fun doing it!
Instead of having a gown hang idly in the back of her closet, the bride will instead have images she can look at every day. She won’t have to journey through the cobwebs of her closet to see the dress she spent one of the best days of her life in. Instead she can just take a quick glance at the photographs on her wall and remember what gorgeous taste she has.
Some brides even choose to include their groom in the photographs, therefore creating a day for the couple where they can wear their wedding clothes again without having to worry about staying flawless.
On the other side of the argument, will the bride regret taking the gorgeous gown for a waltz in the mud? There’s no going back after a trash the dress session. After the photos are taken and the fun is done, what’s left? A lump of filth that needs to be tossed in the trash. There will be no donating the dress to a bride who can’t afford to buy one or passing down the dress to a daughter who wants to carry on family tradition. And who paid for the dress? Money can be a sensitive subject, but wedding dresses aren’t cheap, and if you didn’t pay for the dress, do you really feel okay about destroying it?
Some artists do offer partial trash the dress sessions, where the bride can wear her dress in unique situations without getting it too dirty. However, the bride who chooses this option still runs the risk of staining her dress to the point of no return. There are no guarantees once you take that dress away from a spotless aisle or a gleaming dance floor.
Ultimately, trashing the dress is a lot like planning a wedding- it’s all personal choice. If a bride is a lover of tradition and wants to play it safe, she should hold off and hang the dress in her closet. Who’s to say the dress can’t come out again at a later date if the bride changes her mind and wants to take the plunge and do a trash the dress shoot. If she never changes her mind, then she did the right thing by putting it away and will have no regrets. If the bride is full of spice and loves the idea of a funky photo shoot, then she should take that dress on the trip of a lifetime.
Whatever route the bride takes, she should make sure it puts a smile on her face. There’s no rush to make a decision!
Images from Top of Bottom:
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By: Kelly Hamilton
