Cheryl Chan
The Province
Sunday, September 10, 2007
...Vancouver photographer Jane Eaton Hamilton said she helped two Chicago brides trash their Vera Wangs at a fun-filled spree at the PNE a couple years ago. "They got oil on their dresses," she said. "I'm not sure if they managed to get the spots out or not."
The mystique of "The Dress" is strong. Little girls grow up dreaming of it. Never will a woman spend so much time, effort, care and money--from a few hundred dollars for a simple, second-hand piece to tens of thousands of dollars for a dazzling designer confection--on a dress she'll only wear once before saving it in a box, an heirloom and a relic, depending on who you ask.
Hamilton admits Trash the Dress can be a hard sell. The most common question of brides (and their aghast moms) is: What are we trashing here? Is it a piece of fabric or a symbol of marriage? Is it an act of bridal rage?
Bride to be Cheryl Chudyk, 23, is getting married next year and is on the hunt for the perfect wedding dress. Not the "Queen E Park type," she plans to trash her dress afterward and has begun scoping backdrops for the shoot. She's considered a dip in Burrard Inlet to mimic the Little Mermaid statue in Stanley Park, but "after that, there's not much there." She wants to pose for photos on East Hastings, a Friday night haunt from years of volunteering at a neighbourhood soup kitchen. Her parents think she's crazy. Her fiance vetoed the idea as "too over the edge."
Not Chudyk is looking into Finn Slough, a shanty town-like area in Richmond of waterfront shacks overlooking marshes. She plans to get into the water. Trash the dress? "It's okay if it happens," because she won't need the dress anymore. "Sure, you had a wedding, but now it's a marriage," she said.
Wallowing in the mud with her husband will be a bold step into a very happy future: "Get rid of the deadweight and have some fun right out of the gate."
chchan@png.canwest.com
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