trash the dress

Shootin' at the Slough - TTD // Vancouver from StillMotion
for anyone that hasn't seen my trash the dress, here it is.

my parents came to visit this evening with news that a seventh foot has been found at finn slough where had we finished off a long day with the amazing talent at still motion this summer.

i had scouted out finn slough on the internet and was intent on braving the growdy water there for the amazing backdrop, since neither the ocean nor glacier-cold waterfalls really interested me. after time spent in china town and an area near the train depot, we all went for fish and cihps in steveston. when we got to the slough at the end of the day, it was low tide, and i mean low - and a part of me was disappointed because i thought there wouldn't be any water shots.

the upside, though, was seeing that the slough had a really clean sandy bottom. no scary rocks, no seaweed, no debris, just sand. (i am deathly afraid of coral and unknown underwater substances). we took most of our photos downstream where there was enough water under a bridge for ducks to swim in, and when it came time for me to do this amazing photograph without scrunching up my face as the droplets came down on me, i realized the water was rising, and fast.

while we did get in the water in the end, i almost wished we could have run across the sandy floor because i know my feet could have kicked up some awesome mud onto my bustle.


speaking of ducks, andrew and i love ducks. we call them quacks and often happen upon large groups of them in the wee hours of the night at places like swimming pools and small coves around stanley park.


i had been only somewhat hesitant about splashing the water up only for it to come down on my face because it had a razor thin marbel-ly layer of oil; it wasn't until we were in the car driving back that i realized the full magnitude of the ducks' presence. i had spent my first summer after graduation in the okanagan with mom after mom after mom approaching me because their children were itchy from swimming in the lake with its duck feces. i had a brief moment of fear when i realized that i did not want to spend what short days i had allotted for my honeymoon with parasites that were not contracted from an exotic country. perhaps shooting a trash the dress the day before your honeymoon isn't the best idea. luckily, we were both unharmed.


another interesting thing about this article is that it's written by the same journalist that interviewed me for a trash the dress article last year. i'm thinking it's probably time to follow up with her.

i was featured in the province newspaper

so i was featured in this last sunday's province newspaper of vancouver. (note to bridesmaid: tiara - did you stumble across it or did you anticipate it by my msn name?) here is the online link to the article. the reporter stumbled across my blog on a search for vancouver brides that have trashed the dress, and just as i did, she found no one. somehow i come off sounding like a total nut job in the article, because words like "Friday night haunt" strung together with "East Hastings" makes me sound like i've overcome my days as a prostitute, and "wallowing" makes me sound like some sort of swine. that being said it's still pretty cool to be in the paper for those last few paragraphs in the article. things were misquoted and taken out of context, and i had emailed her something that jenn, the MOH had elucidated and somehow they were taken as my words. Here's what jenn had to say:

"Trashing the dress is two fold for me - not that I'm going to do it but if were: one, it's that no one else is going to wear it, and two for us at least - a white dress is no longer necessary....a destruction of what was for the future you have. Why carry all that around with you? Sure you had a wedding but it's now a marriage, it should no longer be defined by that moment in time, which is why the divorce rate is so high women want to carry all the princess shit forward from that day, and it doesn't work regardless of what the dress looked like or cost - this is now a marriage, a life long commitment - and no dress is going to hold it together if you don't work at it. So get rid of the dead weight and have some fun right out of the gate."

the reporter kept looking for my motivation and ideology behind the concept of trashing the dress. did i "think it was anti-wedding." i'd never thought of it in these terms. to me it's just the aesthetic. sure i could try and say that it's art and attach some sort of lofty, thought out meaning to process. but even most of my personal artwork is just that, art. no politically charged statements. no social comment.

in the beginning andrew wanted to have nothing to do with this trash the dress session - now, when i brought up the questions the reporter had asked me, he laughed and said - it's just a fun thing to do and it'll make great memories.

great memories, yes, that....and i'll have something like a super cool music video of myself!

trash the dress

we spent the long weekend on the island in nanaimo with friends, shelly and jordan. see photo montage above. jordan and i brainstormed some fantastic location ideas for the trash the dress, which included burns bog, among many others that i currently can't remember.

the best man worked with ducks unlimited this summer, wading waist-deep in muddy marshlands breaking down beaver dams. some of his photos revealed landscapes that looked very lord of the rings, frodo-baggins-scurries-through-the-swamp. unable to remember the names of the sites he went to in south surrey, chilliwack and wherever else, a quick search at flickr revealed some strange shanty town, finn slough. it's not on the outskirts of hope, aldergrove, or even lytton, bc, but in richmond, off of No. 3 no less.

these gorgeous photos courtesy of kk at flickr.

trash the dress: waterfalls

via waxy at flickr, apparently taken with a fisheye lens! this photo actually makes the installation look a lot better than it actually does. and why two engagement rings? a stone's throw from davie street, is this making a social statement about lesbian marriages? they could have (easily) made a "diamond" encrusted wedding band to match. this is what greeted me at english bay last time i was in vancouver - it looked pretty gaudy against the backdrop of vanier park - as if these ugly metal sculptures weren't bad enough, juxtaposed against the iconic inuksuk. so, venturing well outside of vancouver, we find waterfalls:


i've always loved the slow shutterspeed effect on waterfalls that makes them all soft and blurry while inanimate objects like rocks are crystal clear. lynn creek, bottom right, looks super cool but i think we can thank photoshop for the green water. i imagine this is all glacier run off and would be beyond cold, even in august heat. photos courtesy of the kind folks at flickr.

trash the dress ideas

here is a quintessentially "vancouver" sight of the mermaid statue ("girl in wetsuit" to be more correct) with the sulfur piles in the background. there's even a little rock for me to pose just like said girl in wetsuit.
i have this secret love for mimicking things around me - see my beau in this photo taken somewhere on the ocean between kawaii and oahu last summer
and so the concept of the sulfur piles is rather exciting to me, but unfortunately, amidst all the photos that i could find on flickr,
only one of them wasn't taken across the water from stanley park and so it leads me to believe that it's very off limits. or even if it wasn't, i'd have to don a hard hat.

so these north shore sulfur piles reminded me of the trainyards that i adore there. my father used to fish for salmon in capilano when i was young and before the natives overfished the area (yes i am aware that is a politcally charged statement, but it's my opinion). we usually came home via the second narrows instead of the lions gate and passed by these trainyards. i returned to these trainyards in university, hoping to have fun running through them at night time, but there were no tresspassing signs everywhere and even a night guard! (photos are courtesy of flickr)

trash the dress part 2

when i think about local spots for a trash the dress session, nothing really appeals to me in the same way i was really bored with the overdone hotels and golf courses as reception venues. i love edgy photos which is why i drool over anything taken with a lomo and/or cross processed. my photography heros used to be heather champ, delicious blur, and quarlo, back in the day when i took more photos.


if i could have my reception in an abandoned warehouse i would be the happiest girl in the world! so on this dirty note, let's talk about trashing the dress....

to me, east hastings is an inextricable part of my vancouver. i took these photos years back with the squatters outside the old woodwards building, but if you're unfamiliar with the area, it's shocking but certainly not out of place.

i went down to hastings and main for about three years, spending 6-7 hours of my friday night serving food or singing worship songs at a small, upstairs place next to the balmoral hotel: street church. now it seems so far away, and so far removed from my life. i went back one christmas to revisit the smell of coffee mixed with hot dogs, mixed with an endless line of unwashed men and felt like i was perhaps the only one i knew who understood how i felt about it.
here's some photos i've gathered off of flickr. you'll see it really is skid row, and i think it's one of the worst places in north america. but it's safe. it's so safe. canadians don't carry guns, eh? and i used to leave street church at 1am.

i read about a trash the dress session where a "daring" bride/model posed on an alley mattress and it reminded me of hastings and main. i used to want to take portraits of the people there because there was so much story in each of their faces. give them a meal in exchange for a portrait. but i literally lacked the balls to do it being small, dainty, and female amongst a throng of drunken men and drugged up prostitutes.

enter crazy option number two: wreck beach. it's not the most beautiful beach as you can see, but it's a clothing optional one!

on the big island in hawaii we visited a black sand beach that also happened to be a nudist beach. our guide was incredulous that vancouver had its very own nudist beach (apparently it's more of a european thing i guess, but hey, canada definitely has a distinct british undertone).

now a video shoot running through nude people in a wedding dress (or for the more daring, in simply just a veil) would be a huge youtube hit, or at least a great sum41 music video.

trash the dress

my dad was somewhat shocked when i told him i really didn't care for a videographer, and i'm sure some guest will have some sort of video camera to get the ceremony at the very least. if anything i wanted someone like dan's brother or blair - someone that is either a little techie or would at least be somewhat excited to operate a super8 camera for all the big moments. but a post at weddingbee featuring a canadian trash the dress video shoot had me absolutely floored. here's a link to the post at still-motion.ca's blog. this photo doesn't do the filming justice, and i love how her dress billows in the wind (do they secretly bring around big fans to their locations or was the weather just fantasticly perfect...?). did i mention yay for feist and not kelly clarkson's latest song?

seriously. watch. this. video.

at any rate, this ontario based company even offers the super8 camera option! hah.

to get a feel of some super8 weddings in general, check out what youtube has to offer.