Suzanne and I wandered around the waterfalls at Lucia Falls in OR. She was totally cool, 8 weeks pregnant and still 100% willing to do just about anything. She climbed on rocks, hiked down to the water and then proceeded to dive right in.

One of the main questions brides ask me when I mention the trash the dress sessions is how often people actually do this? What if their daughter wants to someday wear their dress?

Well, everybody is different, of course. I don’t ever want to push something on a client who doesn’t want it! BUT, I’m in love with the trash the dress shoot. How many times do you get to wear your wedding dress again? Usually never. And how many of us wanted to wear our mother’s wedding gown? Not many of us…and for those that did, a lot of stars have to align–correct sizing, etc. And, most of the time, your dress will already be very dirty by the end of the night. Usually you need to have it cleaned before sending it off to storage–So…why not put that gown back on, embrace the dirt and get some beautiful beach portraits?

And if worse comes to worst, you can always have your dress professionally cleaned and it will take care of all that sand and dirt you bring home with you from the beach after your shoot.

You might remember Julia and Patrick from their engagement photos I shot in Central Park last summer. The two got married down in Playa del Carmen, Mexico back in January…and I was there to document their big day (and to do a little vacationing, myself)! Those photographs will be posted soon enough. In the meantime, because I do things a little a** backwards sometimes, here are their after-session images! Some might call this a “trash-the-dress” session…except there was very little (to none) of trashing the dress. It might have gotten a little dirty around the hem walking around the streets of Brooklyn–but other than that, not so much!

I loved this shoot. Missy at Take 5 Photography had come to the city for the weekend and she and I shot this together! The couple wanted a very urban photo shoot with obvious city landmarks in the background. Things like Times Square and Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center. This is always a challenging shoot–trying to get such icons in a way that still highlights the couple can be tough! Then add on top of that the fact that it was nighttime, raining and SO CROWDED. I warned them ahead of time that other people in the images might not be avoidable and they were totally fine with it. In fact, they welcomed it. Afterall, it doesn’t look like the city if there’s no people!