About 6 or 7 years ago, I declared that on our 10th wedding anniversary we were going to do a “Trash the Dress” photo shoot. About every year we do a family photo shoot, and I wanted to commemorate our decade in marriage, have an opportunity to wear my wedding dress again, and hold myself accountable for fitting in my form fitting wedding dress 10 years later!
Because you know what? That wedding dress sitting in that beautiful preservation box… what are the chances 1) My daughter will actually like it and want to wear it, 2) It will still be in style when she gets married (my Mom’s wedding gown was a turtleneck!!!), and 3) It will fit her? I figured the chances of that were slim to none. But, the chances of us having a TOTAL BLAST and getting AMAZING PHOTOS with the dress on (that we surely wouldn’t do on our wedding day when we were trying to keep the dress clean) were 100%!
So in 2015 we did it…I slipped the dress on…and FTW…it fit! We searched Google images for some inspiration, with the goal of getting wet and dirty and well, trashing that dress! We picked our location – Scripps Pier in La Jolla. It’s such a beautiful place to visit and get great photos, incorporating the pier. I got my hair and make-up done just like I did on our wedding day, and the 4 of us strolled to the beach. It was hilarious as people assumed we were actually just married and giving us their congratulatory remarks…like, woah, you finally tied the knot. Wink wink.
We met our AMAZING photographer we use for all of our family photos. Stefanie Zeltner of Joie De Vivre Photography. All of these photos are courtesy of her and her amazing photography skills, sparkling personality, and creative “pushing” of us to pose for the best shots! I highly recommend anyone doing a Trash the Dress photo shoot. And why not do something fun like that when you are traveling to an amazing destination? You manage to get amazing family photos, trash the dress, and photos of your vacation…all in one! JUST DO IT.
These are just a few of the MANY photos Stefanie gave us, and I hope you can see just how much fun we had. We started off nice and clean…no water intrusion…yet!
Isn’t this area beautiful? We went close to sunset for amazing lighting.
And now we are getting wet!
It’s truly amazing how much heavier that dress feels when it gets SOAKED! I was worried it was going to fall down, ha!
Towards the end she distracted the kids who were running around the beach with a long piece of seaweed, while she encouraged us to pose like we were on the cover of a romance novel!
The sun was starting to set.
The pose most out of my comfort zone, and literally laying in the water as the waves crash on us, but ended up being my favorite photo of the day!
