Trashed dresses make cool pics
2008-07-24 21:29
Sydney - The perfect dress a
perfect wedding makes, but an Australian photographer is
advising brides to destroy their prized gowns for nuptial
pictures to remember.
Seeking to stand out from the hundreds of studios vying for
a slice of the lucrative wedding business, Sydney-based Adam
Cavanagh snaps stylish, fashion-magazine-like shots of brides
in dresses that have been soaked, splattered with paint or
muddied.
While several studios in the United States and other parts
of the world offer "trash-the-dress" photographs, Cavanagh says
the popularity of the service is just gaining ground in
Australia.
"In the US, there's a photo of a bride on fire, well not
really on fire, but it looked a bit Joan of Arc, it was the
shock value," Cavanagh told Reuters.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than
100 000 marriages take place each year.
Cavanagh said he wanted to give Australian brides an
opportunity to be creative and daring in what many couples
consider to be the most lasting, and often expensive, memento
of their wedding.
Packages, ranging in price from A$2 950 to A$5 500 include pictures shot in scenic locations
such as waterfalls, windswept beaches at sunset, building
facades and wooden boardwalks.
But to ensure brides look beautiful on the big day, with
their dress intact, the "trashing" photographs are taken after
the couple have returned from their honeymoon.
"The extreme trashers are very rare," Cavanagh said. "Usually
it's just getting wet, where you can still recover the dress,
or getting in the sand or mud, making it look more like a model
shoot than a bridal photo."
Loren Vincent from Sydney and her husband took the plunge,
literally, and had pictures taken in their full wedding finery
under a waterfall in the Blue Mountains resort area.
"I initially thought, 'Oh my God, why would anyone want to
trash their wedding dress?' But it was heaps of fun," she said.
"I got better photos in the trash-the-dress photos than I
did on my actual wedding day because we were just smiling at
cameras all day. And my dress came out of it all fine."