Have you recently got married, or is your wedding coming up? Do you want to get some amazing pictures in your wedding dress that capture the best day of your life? Romantic and idyllic are all very well and good, but what if you want your pictures to be something truly special? Then try Trash the Dress, the newest trend in wedding photography!
 

Trash the Dress literally means destroying the dress. Which dress is that? Your wedding dress of course! You spend a huge amount of money on your bridal dress, it makes a short, glorious appearance and after your big day it’s stuffed in the cupboard for eternity. Isn’t that a shame? Some brides and photographers in the USA certainly thought so, and from this rose a new trend in wedding photography.

Wedding photos really can be fun – Trash the Dress with powder paint

With Trash the Dress, the dress takes centre stage and is duly celebrated with its own photo shoot. It doesn’t necessarily have to be entirely destroyed, as the name would suggest. It’s more about putting the bridal dress in the limelight and developing new ideas – ideas that have very little in common with traditional and sometimes rather stale wedding photography. Of course, romantic and idyllic settings can be lovely in photos, but does a photo like that really reflect you and your lifestyle? If you want a really distinctive photo shoot – just you and the dress or together with your sweetheart – then Trash the Dress is the right choice for you!

Why Trash the Dress is so great

A Trash the Dress photo shoot doesn’t have to replace the normal wedding photo shoot, but it can complement it wonderfully. It’s best to arrange an appointment after the wedding or even after the honeymoon. This way you won’t be under pressure and you’ll be able to concentrate fully on destroying your bridal dress with the maximum of flair! You’ll be relaxed because the stress will be behind you, and you’ll finally be able to have the light-hearted fun that wasn’t quite possible at the wedding. As you won’t need the dress anymore, you can completely wreck it! Moreover, you can choose from thousands of different locations and settings that wouldn’t usually be available for traditional wedding photography.

Better to be dirty than a princess: photoshoots for motor lovers.

Do you love motorbikes and cars, and love working on your machine in your free time with your new groom? Why don’t you have a photoshoot in a garage and use engine oil? Black grease will look great on your white dress! The weather also plays a huge role in traditional photoshoots. Every bride wishes for brilliant sunshine and great lighting. With Trash the Dress photo shoots, it doesn’t matter whether the sun shines or not. Clouds and rain can be effective in pictures and create atmosphere, while snow and sludge offer great opportunities to play with the dress.

Total washout on your wedding day? Make the most of it!

Find a suitable photographer

The trend of trashing your bridal dress arose in the USA, but photographers in the UK offer special photoshoots too. It’s a trend that’s already gained many devotees, particularly in large cities. Simply do some research online and let yourself be inspired. If you’ve already found a photographer, you should discuss beforehand what you want. How will the photo shoot play out? How much time will you need? How elaborate will the trashing process be? If you already have a good idea of where and how you want to trash your dress, you can offer your photographer some great suggestions. They should also ask you if you want a make-up artist, or even take care of finding an assistant if the photo shoot develops into something particularly elaborate.

Great photos: sunset on the water looks even better up close

You should leave yourself some time at the start of the shoot to get comfortable with the situation. Try things out, improvise and find the right position for you, your dress and your groom. If you have children, you can obviously include them in the shoot too. If you plan to completely destroy your dress, this will obviously happen towards the end of the shoot. So in the meantime you’ll have plenty of time to try different ideas and take some great photos.

Find a suitable location

The choice of suitable locations is enormous! Consider what you find fun and where you enjoy being. Think about locations that you’ve seen in other photos and that appealed to you. The location itself can also offer opportunities for destroying the dress! The car garage is given as an example above, but there are several more great places which will let you annihilate your dress in spectacular fashion. What about, for example, a closed-down Tube station? Desolate tracks where trains no longer travel make a spectacular backdrop for a trashing spree.

Closed-down train stations have a magical quality and are great for wedding photos

Did you meet your groom at the cinema, or in a bar? You can also book that type of location. Swimming pools, lakes, beaches, old factory sites and ruins have an individual, sometimes gloomy atmosphere which works well for trashing. You can also trash your dress while paintballing in the woods, on a climbing wall, at a horse-riding centre, while diving in your dress and taking underwater photos, at a car wash or while mud wrestling. Fire is particularly effective – burn your dress to get incredible photos! If that’s slightly too crazy for you, there’s also good old photoshopping, where you can edit your photos for the desired effect. With Trash the Dress, anything goes!

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Beautiful mess – cake battles for newly-weds!

Create your own Trash the Dress gallery!

When you finally receive your photos from the photographer, you can consider what you want to do with them. A photo album lets you look at the best photos again and again, and you can create your own personal photo album easily with My-Picture.co.uk. A Trash the Dress themed photo album will be great as a coffee table book that all your guests can look through – they’ll be amazed by your unusual wedding photos. Or you can get your favourite photos turned into canvas prints – they’ll draw even more attention hung on the wall. You can even create your own little Trash the Dress gallery using a group of canvases! You’ll find many tips for designing with photos on our blog, so you can get pleasure from your bridal dress long after it’s well and truly trashed – thanks to some beautiful photos.