Last time I was in Hawaii, I was skinnydipping.

Please do be careful with this shoot, if you do decide to do it. A Canadian bride drowned two years ago doing one of these shoots, when her soaked wedding gown became a hundred-pound weight that dragged her under. A sundress would be a better choice for safety, as well as Amy's wonderful suggestion of donating the original gown.

What's with a $3000 dress anyway?

I mean, it's fine if they are filthy rich - but apparently they aren't, or else Dad wouldn't be upset. For normal people, blowing thousands on a one-off event is just plainest stupidity.

Yeah, I like the sundress idea. The lady could even get a white, frilly one. Hopefully, it could be laundered after that romp in the surf, so it could be re-used.

As regards donating the dress, just Google "Wedding Dress Donation [Your Area]" and you'll get lots of results. Here's one example, operating in the DMV. You're sure to find many others.

Silliness. Wasteful. And yeah, if you really want to piss off her dad, go for it. Lack of respect for the dress, and her father's money, is quite evident. I wonder how much she respects the groom?

I'm betting the trash the dress "tradition" began with some enterprising wedding dress maker.

I don't like the wreck the dress trend, but I am not sure her dad will be cool with her donating the dress either. It sounds like there has been a lot of contention over the cost of this wedding and not just the dress. Destination weddings are really expensive and I am guessing this is just the final straw. I would suggest that if she is really committed to this course of action, she should pay for the dress herself. If she can't afford that dress, she should buy one she can afford. She should grow up and leave her daddy out of it.

Yeah, the "trash the dress" trend irritates me. My dress was "only" $500 and I wouldn't dream of destroying it on purpose. (I doubt that either of my daughters are going to want it- styles change.) I wouldn't drive my car into a lake after I was tired of it, either. It's a very, "Look at me, I can just throw money away!" kind of move.

If the dress could be bustled up and the couple was barefoot up to their ankles in the waves, they could get some good "fun" shots. But destroying the dress because it's trendy and you can is stupid. I wouldn't pay for my kid's dress if she was planning to ruin it.

Morbid but worth mentioning: There is a charity that takes old wedding dresses and uses them to make burial gowns for stillborn babies... but that's not as glamorous as a photo shoot, is it?

How about photo-shopping it?

I love my dress. The bodice is seperate, so I've thought about having a black skirt made with maybe some slits with matching lace in them and wearing it together. Or a black top with matching lace and wearing it with the white skirt.

Don't have a lot of upcoming formals, though.

Sounds to me like she has no concept of the value of money, I'm guessing has probably never done a real day's work in her life, and has high expectations of how much money is going to be lavished on her in life ... a combination that may not bode well for Mr Middleman himself. I hope for his sake he's rich. This kind of wastefulness makes me feel literally nauseous.

This might sound unbelievable but her dress cost almost more than our entire wedding budget. And we had a great wedding, in a beautiful setting, we wanted for nothing.

I really like Amy's idea of donating the dress.

Why not just buy a cheap one to destroy for the fun of it?

I'm a photographer and when I need a wedding dress for a shoot I can usually find one at a thrift store for under $20.

When it is your money you can do whatever stupid thing that comes into your head.

When it is someone else's money they get input.

If you spent $3k of someone else's money on a wedding dress, they definitely get input.

I don't know how I feel about this trash-the-dress thing. One the one hand, it seems like a tacky thing to do, especially when, as pointed out above, someone else paid for it. One the other hand, it can be seen as brilliant satire -- what better way to suck the air out of the whole Bridezilla thing?

> what better way to suck the air out of the whole Bridezilla thing?

I can think of a much better way - just have a non-pretentious wedding in the first place that doesn't cost more, say, than the average annual income of most Americans. Wear a budget dress. Have a reasonably-priced location. That'll suck the air out of it.

Otherwise it's just sort of faux-irony, isn't it? - a display of "ooh we're so edgy and non-Bridezilla that we're trashing the dress" - the $3,000 dress at the dream location of Hawaii - it's like the ultimate display of excessive consumption.

Wedding gowns, excepting eprhaps silk, are ridiculously easy to clean. I used to work at a wedding gown store in my late teens and I can't tell you how many times we were scrubbing something off a dress with ivory soap (or dawm, or hand soap from teh bathroom) just before a bride was due to pick it up. A little blast from teh hairdryer, it was fine. For wide-sread stains a good soaking in the bathtub with dawn and water worked fine.

I think the allure of the pic is a modeling/photoshoot fantasy. It's something you'd see in a magazine, not something typical people would ever do. So I see wanting to, I even think it'd be fun. I'm just too practical.

Well, it IS a destination wedding, so they've already foisted exorbitant extra costs onto their families and friends already.

Toss another three grand into the wind and post some selfies. It's what makes a marriage a success!

I think the allure of the pic is a modeling/photoshoot fantasy. It's something you'd see in a magazine, not something typical people would ever do.

Except for the fact that everyone is doing it.

Momof4, aren't wedding dresses pretty much always silk, though?

I like the description of this book (disclaimer, I haven't read it):
http://ow.ly/z8Cdi

The Culture of Excess: How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success

From the description:

...portrays an America where the drive to succeed and the fear of missing out manifested itself not only in self-entitled corporate fraud, but in everything from sharp rises in obesity and cosmetic medical procedures to equally troubling increases in eating disorders, panic attacks, and outbreaks of uncontrollable rage.

The Culture of Excess is the first book to assess the impact of economic and social factors on the nation's psychological well-being. Narcissism, productive narcissism, psychopathy, rigidity and self destruction, perfectionism, the illusion of success, and identity achievement all come into play as Slosar diagnoses the psychological drivers behind this indulgent age...

Here, in particular, I'd peg it as the "illusion of success". If you have so much money that you can, in effect, burn thousand-dollar-bills on a whim, well, you must be successful. She obviously really likes that illusion.

Even if I gave someone a thousand-dollar-bill as an outright gift, I'd be put out if they turned around and lit it on fire in my presence. Did nobody teach her when she was a little girl, that when you get a gift from Great Aunt Sally, you say a polite thank you and keep the illusion of it being the Best Gift Ever, until Aunt Sally finally goes home?

If, OTOH, a person went out and earned those thousand-dollar-bills with their own ability and sweat, then I say, do what makes you happy with 'em.

Here's a selfless and generous project to which you can donate a wedding dress (if not to another bride):

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/wedding-dresses-become-angel-gowns-babies-n70881

This woman takes donated dresses and makes little gowns, sort of like christening gowns, for stillborn babies or those who die soon after birth. Depending on the style of dress, she can make as many as a dozen gowns from one dress for those poor parents who go to the hospital but don't bring their baby home.

"I mean, it's fine if they are filthy rich - but apparently they aren't, or else Dad wouldn't be upset. For normal people, blowing thousands on a one-off event is just plainest stupidity.

Posted by: a_random_guy"

If Dad made his fortune rather than inheriting it, he will be upset by waste no matter how rich he is. Success in business requires tightly controlling costs; you do not have to be a natural-born penny-pincher to keep a successful business going, but you do have to be one to turn a small business into a big one.

The whole "trash the dress" deal is just another way for the wedding industry to make money. From what I understand, trashing the dress started out innocently enough as just a fun way to deal with a dress you'll never wear again. Then the photographers caught on to it and now charge thousands for pricey, professionally shot and made up, trash the dress photos and videos. The bride is trying to be fun and casual with her dress in full makeup and hair. The photos and videos get posted on YouTube so thousands of wetlook fetishists can get a thrill from it.

I'm not anti-wedding. I had a big white wedding of my own and loved it (although my dress cost about 1/5 of this one). But really the new ways the industry finds things you can throw money at is excessive!