By Erin White

A ring of dirt around the hem of a wedding dress tells of a fun-filled reception. Still, most brides protect their gowns for posterity or, at the very least, for reminiscing.

Others, like Jennifer Costa, rolled around in the dirt.

Costa is part of a small but growing number of brides across the country who decide to trade the perfectly preserved dress for gritty, unconventional but often stunning pictures with a high-fashion bent — a trend known as “trashing the dress.”

After Costa, 29, and her husband, Anthony, 32, of Grapevine, Texas, said their vows on a beach in Anguilla, Jennifer picked up the hem of her gown and walked to the edge of the water so her photographer, Kevin Jairaj of Keller, Texas, could snap pictures of the waves lapping at her feet.

She ended up lying on her back with sand grinding into her dress and hair, and with the surf washing over her. She was filthy, but the picture was artistic, striking and worthy of hanging on a wall.

The idea of “trashing the dress” started in February 2006 when Las Vegas photographer John Michael Cooper created a photo illustration of a bride with her arms open wide and her dress on fire. He posted the image on a photo blog with an article urging photographers to keep an eye out for creative brides willing to take risks in wedding photos.

In May 2006, Louisiana-based photographer Mark Eric took the concept to New York to photograph a bride playing in a fountain and her husband carrying her, sopping wet, across the threshold of the Ritz-Carlton.

After the wedding, he registered the domain name www.trashthedress.com to post the slide show.

By September he had turned it into a blog. Traffic grew steadily, reaching about 100,000 visitors by June 2007.

The New York Times wrote a story and “it just exploded,” he said. The site has had more than 1 million visitors.

What, exactly, constitutes “trashing” a dress?

“The main gist,” Eric says, “is to have fun and get creative pictures that are different from everyone else’s. Wedding photos don’t have to be stiff.”

Trashing the dress often positions the bride in an unexpected location, such as a fire escape, pond or farm. Sometimes the dress is ruined; sometimes a professional cleaning can undo most, if not all, of the damage.
So why on earth would a bride want to ruin her gown?

Eric says, in his experience, the bride wants to showcase her personality and cut loose.“

Before the ceremony, they’re so terrified of getting the dress dirty. This is a way to say, ‘Let’s have some fun, and if you get a little grass stain, it doesn’t really matter.’”

Maggie Gallant, a trend expert who specializes in pop culture, fashion and celebrity, says that’s not the only reason these types of pictures appeal to brides. “There are varying thoughts on the psychology behind it, but it has to do with the idea that the dress just sits there in your closet gathering dust. Why not ... take a photo that will last much longer?”

Jairaj says the practice has started catching on in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the past year and that 10 percent to 15 percent of the brides who hire him include a “dress-trashing” photo in their portfolios.

Those who go the route of dirt — or grease from train tracks or rust from the hood of a car or mud kicked up by a horse — are looking for more than just a pretty picture.

Indeed, Costa, who is pretty but conservative in her demeanor, positively smolders in her pictures.

“I didn’t think they were going to be so sexy,” she says, opening her eyes wide and pulling her shoulders up toward her ears. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to show all of them to the kids.

Most of the time, Eric says, the dresses are salvageable. “You can put it in a box or donate it to a charity, like Brides Against Breast Cancer, which we support.”

And Costa says it’s easy to get around ruining an expensive gown.

“Just buy a bridesmaid dress like I did. I only spent $200, so I didn’t feel too badly when it got dirty.”