Trashing The Dress????

WEDDING dresses, they're enough to send any bride into a tizzy. You've agonised over the decision, you've tried hundreds on, spent thousands, now trash it.

It no longer comes down to deciding between cream, white or ivory. It's all about what you're going to do with the dress once you've said 'I do.'

A new trend in wedding dress photography is sweeping the country, encouraging brides to destroy their dresses.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, more than 100,000 marriages take place each year, and brides are now looking for wedding photography that goes beyond a passionate embrace.

Adam Cavanagh, of Cavanagh Photography, was one of the first photographers to offer the trash the dress trend in Australia, and says that while trashing a wedding dress might almost seem sacreligious, brides are getting down and dirty in their dresses in the name of art.

"Totally destroying the dress it is not for everyone,' said Cavanagh. "But the idea behind it is you are committed to your husband, you are not going to get married again and this is a symbol of committed you are going to be."

Playing in the mud, frolicking in the surf, paintball fields, cutting, ripping and setting their dress on fire are just some of the ways brides are showing this commitment.

Cavanagh says a $3000 gown is the most expensive dress he's photographed being trashed, but he has his eye on a client who paid $7000 for hers.

"She's having a good think about it, but because she invested so much money into it, she's a bit hestitant!" he laughed.

Marisa Wallace decided to take the plunge, literally, and trash the $1200 strapless ivory gown she had bought online from America for her big day.

"I havent seen my dress since my wedding day, I took it off at the reception, got changed into something else and went out and it's been hanging in my mum's wardrobe ever since.

"When this opportunity came up I said 'alright, let's pull it out of mum's wardrobe and try it on, there's not much point in having it sit in mum's wardrobe for the rest of my life!'"

Marisa had no qualms about getting her mported gown dirty or damaged as she delved into the rockpools at South Coogee and took to the dress with a nasty looking pair of scissors.

"I'm not the sort of person that invests emotionally into objects. I have a wonderful marriage and I don't actually need symbols of that marriage.

"I think if I was the sort of person who was like that then I would have invested more time in buying a dress that I loved and then I would have a bit more of an aversion to doing it, or at least doing more of a semi-trash the dress rather than full on let's rip it to shreds and chuck it in the garbage bin at the end of the day."

What do you think? Is it creativity or destruction? Would you trash your wedding dress?