New Bride Drowns While Posing for “Trash the Dress” Pictures

Well, that’s a pretty shitty way to go down.

Cant trust bystanders to Save your life.. well Next Soul…

I guess you are not very familiar with wedding dresses? Because if you were you would know that you can’t just take it off- it takes absolute AGES and lots of help. So considering the circumstances it probably wasn’t possible to do at the time.

Yeah, getting dressed is like a group effort…kind of like a throwback 200 yrs.

So….I didn’t know this phenomenon existed. We’ve been married 6 yrs & I can’t sell my dress (too dated)….I kinda sorta want to do this. But, with less death.
As a photographer I have to say….don’t trust us. I would NEVER intentionally endanger someone but we’re human too – go with your gut. This is why I don’t do awesome suspended baby shots – I’m scared to death they could fall & I’m not that proficient with photoshop (to shop out a supportive hand).
Another thought – if you’re going in water, remove all the petticoats & added bulk. THis is a no-brainer, no?

Hear, hear.

I liked Tkaz’s comment though. It IS like a multi-century throwback. Oh, how I long for archaic relics from a time when women were still considered property. Suckers.

Off Topic: Is anyone else getting “image could not be loaded” when they click on a link for a picture? This has been happening to me for days on this site.

I completely agree! Whatever happened to consignment or donations? Letting someone else get use of it?

Couldn’t he have tried to get the dress off?

Getting her to the surface would be no problem. Getting her out of the water and onto the dry another matter entirely. Takes far more strength to do the latter. (Try filling a bathtub with water and dropping a towel in it, if you still have trouble believing this.)

Also, it sounds like there was a strong current where she went in and drowned and where they dragged her up from was in deep water with no current where she’d come to rest on the bottom. Possibly people with knowledge of the currents in the area could predict where her dead body would be found.

This “trash the dress” thing wasn’t a trend when I got married 8 years ago. I wouldn’t have drowned in mine anyhow. My dress was an empire-waisted Audrey Hepburn meets Kate Winslet/Titanic gown. It was chiffon and light and showcased the tiny waist I had back then. Everyone wondered why I didn’t have a huge gown but to this day I still love that dress. But what a terrible way to die, struggling to keep your face above water. I’m going to have nightmares now.

Her husband was not there. Also, trying to save a drowning person WITHOUT an anvil tied to them is hard enough.

“Maria Pantazopoulos” – is that her married or maiden name? What a crazy name.

Imagine if she’d just bought something nice to get married in that she could actually wear more than once.

I was thinking the same thing….. Shouldn’t common sense just prevail here. Unfortunately you can’t teach common sense. I believe the money would be wasted.

Well, I was being sarcastic, but in all seriousness… you can teach people to think about safety. I would think that No Swimming signs posted near a fast river would clue someone in that standing in the current in a heavy wedding dress is prone to danger. If you must do it anyways, some simple safety considerations that probably would have saved this fool’s life would’ve included wearing a harness underneath the dress, with a rope running between it and a tree, so she could be hauled out quickly in the event she lost control like she did (which may have required more than the two others present to manage, but certainly would have been easier than trying to grip her in the river and pull her out, and would’ve allowed both of them to haul at the same time in the same direction.) Or she could’ve rigged the dress so she could tear out of it easily, which if she was planning on destroying it anyways, would’ve made sense. The problem here wasn’t that it was an inherently dangerous and moronic stunt to pull, but that no thought was given to what risks were present and how to mitigate them.

I just find it unbelievable (well, not really) that the family is demanding more safety measures – do we not have enough adult hand-holding in society as it is, already? While this whole “Trash The Dress” phenomenon sounds wholly retarded to me, I wouldn’t ill-wish any of the idiots who choose to follow this trend – their dresses are their property to do with as they please, after all. But considering what a wastefully destructive self-indulgence it is, when there’s no shortage of destitute brides who’d doubtlessly greatly appreciate a donated gown, the family shouldn’t expect my fucking sympathies. I’m saving them for more generous victims. If anything they should take their anger up with the photographer. When I go to a park/preserve/etc., I want to look at Nature, not a bunch of signs warning dumbasses about all the ways their stupidity could possible injure or kill them.

I thought it already said no swimming ? Aside from teaching people to read…..

Smart sugarpie.

A textbook tragedy.

“Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like a while they bore her up……But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.”

“Too much of water hast thou, poor [ Maria ],
And therefore I forbid my tears.”

I’m getting married soon, within a year ( Yeaaaa!!! He finally proposed!) and I thought for about 10 minuets of doing a trash the dress, then I remembered…I’m a small lady, ( I wear teenagers sizes) and when I was young I would have killed for a beautiful prom dress in my size, but couldn’t afford it. I’m going to donate it to a group who gives them to girls in need, and try and talk bridesmaids into doing it too. I have a better idea, the bridal party and I are going to do “crazy shoes” basically, just craft the hell out of some plain white shoes, with whatever they want. It’s gonna be fun!

Apparently – since Darwin seems to have struck again. First thing I thought about when I head that name was the 80′s show Webster with Popodopolous being their last name. Made me laugh.

Couldn’t she just rip the dress or have someone throw paint at her while wearing it…i watched a wedding type show on tv the bride was getting the trash the dress photos done and the photographers idea was to bathe her in chocolate type syrup …that would be safer all day than to risk drowning in an ocean…

I agree–it’s a stupid and wasteful trend.

Thank you!

The Mary Madeline Project takes wedding gowns and turns them into burial clothes for stillborn babies. Infinitely less selfish and wasteful than “trashing” the dress.

Teenager size with some older lady size parts too???

That’s why the greeks are in so much financial ruin. Everyone has to take too much time out of their work day to sign their names! In the US, everyone is named Jones or Smith. Easy in, easy out, sign in, and get to work.

um…all the important parts are? I have a 28 in waist, and wear size 3/4 jeans.

I wasn’t so much hugely blessed in that department.

Put the dress on ebay for $50. Give it to the Salvation Army. Give it to St. Vincent de Paul. Give it to Christian Layman’s Corps. Give it to Good Will. Contact a local shelter and see if there are kids who’d like to cut the fabric up to make doll clothes. Donate your gown to Brides Against Breast Cancer. Give it to a little theatre company or a college or university theatre department. Give it to the little girl down the street to play dress up–she’ll love you for it. Find a consignment shop and put it up for sale at whatever price they suggest. Donate it to a sewing school. They can play with it and learn alterations. Cut the damned thing up and make little pillows for doll beds. Just don’t “trash” it thereby announcing to the world that you are so selfish you won’t share something you don’t even want anymore.

Hi all. Has anyone heard from Yeti lately?

That’s a terrible photo for a “photographer”! Camera man needs to be charged with stupidity. What kind of moron instructs a wedding dress-clad broad to go into a river where the currents are the strongest? What kind of idiot thinks it’s totally safe & complies? One last thing, why the fuck are so many women so incredibly stupid that they’d rather ruin their dress beyond use instead of selling it and getting a few hundred profit out of it?? Derp.