Not So Stuffy and Formal

Grill in downtown Tucson is a grungy retro spot that’s perfect for
cheap, greasy grilled-cheese sandwiches, tater tots and … wedding
photos?

Yes, wedding photos.

It’s all part of the photography movement known as Trash the Dress,
in which the bride and groom celebrate the end of the nuptial circus
(also known as the wedding) by heading off to unexpected places to take
nontraditional wedding photos, say local photographers Casia and Eric
Fletcher, of Purple Nickel Studio.

“Trash the Dress basically means a completely nontraditional photo
session where the bride and groom totally do something
unexpected—witty, clever and totally fun and hip—something
they’ve never experienced before,” Casia explains.

Trash the Dress began in 2001, with Las Vegas photographer John
Michael Cooper (whose company, altF, is short for “alternative fucking
photography”) taking photos of brides in unusual locations and
circumstances—for example, both the bride and groom in the middle
of nowhere; the bride completely submerged in the ocean; and even the
bride standing in the desert with her dress violently engulfed in
flames.

The latter may seem a bit extreme for the average bride, and local
photographer Erin Durband, of e.kah.d Photograpy, says Trash the Dress
photography doesn’t necessarily mean lighting that prized Vera Wang on
fire.

“It’s taking it a different place—getting dressed up again and
going to a place you wouldn’t normally go, basically. Yeah, you can
trash it, and there are people who will absolutely, completely trash
the dress, but most of the time, you just get dirty,” she says.

Durband found out about the quirky Trash the Dress trend while
attending a bridal convention in Nevada and quickly got into the
style.

“Erin Durband had found John Michael Cooper at a Las Vegas bridal
convention show,” says Casia, who has attended workshops and shot on
location with Durband. “He had a booth there, and she was, like,
astonished by the way he had set up his booth. … Right from the
start, he had already set the tone of his photography. She went to his
Web site, showed it to me, and we were hooked. That’s pretty much how
we were introduced to Trash the Dress.”

These local photographers were attracted to Cooper’s extreme,
bride-sitting-in-a-graveyard style of wedding photography thanks to the
utterly nontraditional approach he takes in his photos.

“It’s not so stuffy and formal anymore,” Casia says.

Trash the Dress photo sessions, she and Eric explain, give the bride
and groom an opportunity to show their style: The bride can be more
creative with her hair and makeup and throw on some zebra-print high
heels and other random accessories, for example, while the groom can
wear Converse sneakers or even jeans.

The opportunity to incorporate the couple’s personal style, combined
with the fact that most of the photos are taken “in the moment and not
posed,” Casia says, makes the photos more personal—images that
the bride and groom would want to hang on a wall and be proud of, as
opposed to traditional photos that just get stuffed in albums and
tucked away in the attic.

“We try to make Trash the Dress, which we call Detour, an
experience. … Once the session is finished, and we go into
post-production and Photoshop, it goes to a completely different level
of photography,” she says. “We don’t show (the clients)
shot-out-of-the-camera images; we actually make them art
pieces—one-of-a-kind photographs that they would want to hang on
their wall as huge art prints or canvasses.”

The artsy, urban feeling of a Detour photo shoot—so named,
because it’s a “detour from traditional”—can be enhanced by the
unique juxtaposition of the bride in her gown standing next to ordinary
or even deserted places, like Grill or the shuttered Santa Rita
Hotel.

“It’s not shot around typically a ‘wedding venue;’ we go downtown,
urban locations, very desolate, run-down locations, which makes it
edgier. … It’s very raw, and just unique and different,” Casia
says.

In addition to urban settings, Trash the Dress photos can also be
taken in more natural places, like on a beach or in the desert or
mountains, Durband says.

Durband, whose Trash the Dress photo shoots are called Dirty Laundry
sessions, has photographed in natural settings like San Diego beaches,
Oak Creek near Sedona, and even the muddy streets of Tucson after
monsoon showers.

Her Dirty Laundry sessions have raised controversy, though, as some
see the image of a bride waist-deep in a creek and say that it’s
disrespectful to the institution of marriage.

“Because it’s kind of new to a lot of people, there is such a huge
misconception about Trash the Dress. They just think that the (type of
shoot means the) dress has to be trashed, and that it is disgraceful.
… But, really, I don’t go out thinking, ‘How can I destroy this dress
the best way possible?’ That’s not really what it is,” Durband says.
“It’s, ‘How can I make art the coolest way possible?'”

Like Durband, the Fletchers also try to focus on taking photos in a
unique style that the bride and groom can appreciate as art more than
just “trashing the dress.”

They say one of the most fun aspects of their Detour shoots is that
they can take place the day after the wedding—or 20 years
later.

“The way I interpret Trash the Dress is (it’s) basically another
excuse to get dressed up back in your wedding attire,” Casia explains.
“I mean, you can do whatever you want now; you can get the dress dirty,
or you can do different poses and locations that you normally couldn’t
do on your wedding day. So it is kind of this new freedom you get to
experience in a shorter photo shoot, and there’s no real stress or
timeline like there is on your wedding day.

“Basically, (it’s) just carefree—just go and have fun.”

This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2009.