Do you dare to destroy your wedding dress after the wedding? The two friends Caterina and Elisabeth showed how to do it and captured their "Trash Your Wedding Dress" promotion in great photos! If you are brave: imitation recommended!
The big day is over, it was celebrated, drunk, laughed and the ring is now on the finger. And while the wedding cake is being plastered and the bridal bouquet is thrown, you don't know what to do with the dreamy wedding dress after the wedding. In most cases, the same goes into the closet and just takes up a lot of space over the years and decades. But you can also do it like Caterina and Elisabeth!
Because the two happily married couples "trashed" their wedding dresses - or, in German, "destroyed" them! And had the fun of their lives doing it: On a farm, they made close friends with the animal residents and threw themselves around in mud and dirt with enthusiasm.
The dress got its big appearance again and the bride was staged - albeit completely differently than at the wedding: from perfect make-up and hairstyle to wild, dirty and inappropriate.
We had a lot of fun looking through the photos, so we asked the two friends, who might have brought this trend from the USA to our latitudes, for an interview:
WOMAN: How did you come up with the idea of trashing your wedding dress?
Caterina: Ines and Andreas Grünwald (the photo team - editor's note) are dear friends of mine and took photos of my wedding in June 2011. A year later, Ines told me about the “Trash The Dress” trend and that she would like to photograph something like this one day. I was immediately enthusiastic, but didn't want such "boring" pictures in which the bride just stands in the lake and the dress gets wet. Together with my best friend Elisabeth, who was also my maid of honor, we then developed the idea of the farm shoot. It was clear that we wanted to do this together, and that it should be really dirty.
Elisabeth: It was important to me that it was something "different" and that the dress was by no means spared. In the best case scenario, you only get such pictures once in a lifetime! So it was important to me to also incorporate the mud, because you don't do that every day.
WOMAN: How did it feel to put the wedding dress on again on a different occasion?
Caterina: Well, to be honest, it wasn't an easy decision. Of course you think about the fact that the dress cost the proverbial avalanche. There are so many wonderful memories associated with it, it is just something very, very precious. On the other hand, the question arises: All right, and if you don't trash it, what happens to it? Right, it will stay in the box for the next 25 years. Because the likelihood of having a daughter or daughter-in-law who then wants to wear exactly your dress at their own wedding is probably rather low. And with that the decision was made.
Elisabeth: I have two 4 year old daughters and I already know one thing: They would never wear my dress! However, I have kept my veil because it is long and studded with lace. I think this is the one they would most likely wear. Therefore, the decision to trash the dress was not particularly difficult for me, because I got wonderful photos of Ines and Andi and I see the dress much more often than if it was just hanging in the box. I hung up the photos in the living room.
WOMAN: Did it hurt in between to destroy the beautiful dress?
Caterina: To get into the dress on the day of the shoot, the hoop skirt, yes, that was really weird. I already liked that "sissy feeling" at the wedding. The first real contact with the cow dung was really an overcoming. But at some point you get to the point where it doesn't matter. To be honest, Elisabeth got there much faster. She really threw herself into the dirt, so I was still rather hesitant.
Elisabeth: Timid? You bitched at first! But then I reminded you of our plan - namely to wear the dress and not to spare it - and you were in the dirt too! Sometimes you just need a certain step! I had zero inhibitions. On the contrary: I really enjoyed doing something completely different and completely crazy.
WOMAN: Could a business idea develop from this?
Caterina: Well, of course not for Elisabeth and me. But I do think it's a nice idea for a shoot. You simply need two things: a suitable location and the right photographer. The former was really difficult. It's probably easier in the country, but finding a farm with animals near Vienna was a challenge. We were really lucky that Alex and Angela gave us the opportunity on their farm. We were allowed to use everything, no pitchforks, no sheep, no pigs, no hens and no horses were safe from us. Our big advantage was of course that we had a very open-minded, young photo team who really wanted to do the shoot with us. I like that the Grünwalds have a woman and a man taking photos, so you get very different perspectives on the pictures. It was funny, for example with the sheep Ines first photographed us from her point of view and Andreas then wanted us in a completely different position in the same place. The perspectives are simply different and I find that an enrichment.
WOMAN: Is the dress still alive?
Elisabeth: Definitely no! I had an idea in mind: to burn the dress. After we shot the last shot with the water hose, I put this idea into the room very quietly too non-committally. It would never have occurred to me that Alex and Angela actually allow that on your farm! So I was a bit shocked at the beginning - because I've never stood in front of the camera THAT - but in the end I was extremely happy! Because Ines and Andi managed to implement my ideas 1: 1!
Caterina: In the end, the clothes were really absolutely and completely filthy, Elisabeth's was really torn. Alex, the farm owner, spontaneously made us a hanger for the dress, we poured gasoline over it and set it on fire. At first it didn't want to burn properly. It's not as easy as we imagined. Then again some really great pictures were taken. My dress ended up in the trash - there was nothing left to save. Even the crinoline, the stockings, even the rubber boots were covered in dirt on the inside. My goodness, that stank … and we did!
All photos from wedding photography Grünwald.
