Pictures that say more than "I Did"

Erin Fitzgerald is hoping for some fantastic pictures out of her photo shoot, but one thing she's not too worried about is her dress.

"You don't normally get to do this kind of stuff in a nice fancy dress, and I live and work in barn, so it was kind of a fun thing and a girly thing," Fitzgerald says.

Erin is mixing formal fashion with her passion of living life on the farm in a photography session called "trash the dress." "A trash the dress session happens sometimes after the wedding, the bride puts on her dress, and we go to a location that's not usually associated with weddings like a farm, a downtown alley, someplace like that," photographer Erin Browne explains. "We are able to get pictures that aren't too practical to get on the wedding day because of the need to keep the dress clean."

She is one of the local photographers who offers trash the dress sessions. "These images are meant to provoke a reaction, since they are going to typically look different than what you normally see in wedding day photos, and I think that appeals to people," says Browne.

The images appealed to Fitzgerald so much that she decided to do a trash the dress session even though she isn't a bride.

"This is something fun I was really looking forward to," says Fitzgerald, who decided to use her prom dress.

A trash the dress session doesn't necessarily mean the gown will be destroyed.

As one trash the dress website puts it, it's not about destruction, it's about creation.

"We leave it up the bride to decide how comfortable she is with that, but the session can be as tame as lying in the grass or on a hay bale, or it can be as extreme as rolling around in the mud or going swimming in a lake", says Browne.

The sessions give the photographers a chance to be more creative and give the bride an opportunity to show off her personality.