What is the Trash-the-Dress session? Is it a passing fad or is it becoming a major staple in wedding photography? Should you do it, or would you prefer not to mess up the dress that you’ve probably spent a lot of money on?
Well, I’ll just say that it is probably the most sought after photo session in the wedding photography industry at the moment. Why? Many reasons. Whenever a bride tells me that she will never do such a thing as dirty her beloved wedding dress, I always ask her, what do you plan to do with it. Amazingly, most bride’s haven’t really thought about the answer to that question. Most of them haven’t thought beyond putting it in a bag and hanging it in the closet.
The reality is, if you do just that, I mean hang it in the closet, it will start to fall apart over the next few years, discolor, and in some cases literally disintegrate. To properly store the wedding dress, the bride has to have it professionally dry-cleaned and sealed to prepare it for a long period of storage in order to preserve it in all its glory. Once a bride really thinks about doing this, then I ask her; if you are going to have it professionally cleaned, then why not get a little more out of it before you do that. After-all, you’ve spent quite a bit to purchase it, so why wear it only once when you can put it on again and get more mileage out it of- more bang for your buck so to speak.
Amazingly, once a bride thinks about it a little, most of them come back to me saying they want to do this session. It just makes no sense not to do it! 🙂
There’s also another very important reason why I recommend the trash the dress photo session. It is an amazing way to insure that you will have incredible photos at the best location and at the best time of year to capture them. A lot of weddings take place early in the spring or in the summer season. What if you could have the photos from your wedding day in the spring, and then have photos taken during the fall with all the beautiful colors that season has to offer. Or suppose your wedding is taking place somewhere far from the city, and although you’d love to get some shots at the Old Port, your planning does not allow for it and you don’t want to keep your guests waiting at the reception hall. The trash-the-dress session is a great plan B, where we set up a date shortly after the wedding day, when we know the weather is going to be perfect at a location that you want to take the photos, and at your ideal time of the year. A few days before the shoot, we check the weather and if they’re calling for rain, we simply postpone the date.
To me, this session is so important that I include it in two of my three wedding packages. In fact 9 out of ten couples I photograph go with a package that includes a TTD session. I even throw in an album-upgrade plus a large print in that package to insure that the couple will be able to fit some of those incredible photos in their wedding album and have a beautiful large print from the session hanging on their wall.
Here are some images from the last photo session I shot a few days ago:
by beautifoto