During my hours of checking out what other wedding photographers are up to. I’ve noticed a really cool thing that a lot of my American shooters are doing- trashing the wedding dress! Trashing the wedding dress is a new fad that I noticed at a lot of destination weddings. Couples would basically roll around in the beach like they were doing the latest Calvin Klein photo shoot.

However, it seems that a trash the wedding dress shoot is no longer isolated to just to the beach are warm weather destinations. This video from youtube is a perfect example of what one bride did on her trash the wedding dress shoot in America. Its getting very popular in the U.S. I didn’t even realize it but my mate even pointed out to me that the word “trash” is rarely used in the UK. For some reason “bin the dress” doesn’t seem to have the same ring to it, nor would some sort of rhyming slang.

I don’t think trash the wedding dress shoots have quite caught on here in the UK. I see it every once in a while on people’s portfolios but its almost too novel! The wedding industry is just so much bigger across the Atlantic, however, I have no doubt it’ll catch on over here.

Is this something you would ever do? I’d probably say only 5% of the weddings I’ve shot would the bride even think about it. As a typical guy I can see why a bride would do such a thing to her dress. She’s never going to wear it again, why the fuss? However, I can also understand that a dress is also a symbol of your wedding and love so why stomp around in it like it means nothing?

I’ve personally never done a trash the wedding dress shoot but it sure does interest the hell out of me! The opportunity to get to explore the fashion-esque side of my photography would be a hell of a lot of fun. Especially, since any bride that doesn’t mind trashing something that was symbolically important is mostly likely to be really fun to work with!

So the question is would any of you ever do this to your vintage Vera Wang? What are your thoughts on this style of photography, will this come and go like Betamax of VHS. Have any of you ladies out there in cyberspace ever done a trash the wedding dress shoot? If so I’d like to know, I’m also looking for volunteers so give me a shout if your brave and you want to trash the wedding dress!

Watch this space…..

About the Author: Randolph Quan is a UK based wedding photojournalist. You can follow Randolph on Twitter or check out his wedding photography here.