Dress Unscripted
story: Kerri Regan
WEDDING DRESSES GET AN ENCORE PRESENTATION
The three brides are picture perfect, but there’s not a cake, a guest or even a groom in sight. Rather than walking down the aisle, they jump right into Whiskeytown Lake together – and the resulting photographs are a collection of unscripted, creative, nontraditional art.
Many couples are embracing “trash-the-dress” photography sessions as a unique way to give wedding attire an encore. Some do it right after the wedding; others do it weeks, months or even years later. They’ve been done on the beach, in abandoned buildings… even on paintball courses and in muddy fields.
“A trash-the-dress shoot provides the bride and groom with a completely uninhibited session,” says Kara Stewart of Kara Stewart Photography. “They are not worried about the guests watching, spills on the dress, timelines, etc.”
When Denise and Gary Whitmire of Cottonwood renewed their vows last summer after 33 years of marriage, photographer Mary Smith of Digital Memories Photography asked her to consider a “trash the dresses” session.
“At first, I said, ‘No way. The girls will think we’re nuts,’” Denise says of her two sons’ wives, Tracy and Megan. “But they wanted to do it, too.” So the three Whitmire women headed to Whiskeytown in their wedding gowns. “At first, we got our feet in and just stood in the water… then we got our hair wet,” says Tracy, who married Gary Whitmire Jr. 12 years ago (and still fits in her wedding dress). Among their photos are a series in which they flip their water-soaked heads back, creating waterfalls above their faces. A shot from above shows the difference in the three skirts – Denise’s is form fitting, Megan’s extends outward slightly more, and Tracy’s full tulle skirt looks like a billowing cloud (“it felt like towing a boat” to swim with it, she says).
Props were encouraged, so they brought hats, heels, boas and boots. To make it a three-generation affair, Tracy’s daughters – Chloe, 7, and Ellie, 3 – wore the flower girl dresses from their grandparents’ vow renewal, and Smith captured looks of sheer delight on their faces as they scampered among large rocks in their better-than-Sunday-finest.
Toward the end of the session, Tracy and Megan’s husbands donned casual shorts to join their wives in the water (Megan has been married to Tadd Whitmire for three years).
The Whitmires knew their dresses might not survive the session, but a little time on hangers in the garage was all they needed. Of course, blasting them with paintballs or riding a horse through the mud in the rain would likely end quite differently – but brides who are torn between doing a “trash the dress” session and saving their dress for a future generation don’t necessarily need to choose one or the other. “You could go to a thrift store and find a dress,” Smith says.
On the wedding day, couples tend to be stressed about details: Is the cake here yet? Are the guests happy? But during a trash-the-dress session, it’s a completely different vibe. “It’s just awesome. It’s so much fun,” says Smith, who enjoys them so much that she’s offering her wedding photography clients a free trash-the-dresses session in 2010.
Stewart agrees. “I love them and wish every couple would consider doing one,” Stewart says. “You get to capture the outfits and personalities in a more dramatic yet laid back way.”•
