Your wedding day. You’ve scrimped and saved and planned, so that everything will be perfect. You’ve spent thousands of dollars on the event, not to mention the dress. The hours of searching, trying, rejecting and finally finding that perfect dress of your dreams could rival the search for Mister Right. Now, due to a new trend, you’re dead in a river before your honeymoon.
That’s what happened in Laval, Quebec (just minutes from where I live) on July 24th, 2012. The beautiful blonde bride, Maria Pantazopoulos, drowned in her wedding dress because she wanted to take part in the latest wedding fad, “trash the dress”.
Trash the dress is a relatively new phenomenon where the bride (and sometimes the groom too) take part in a photo shoot wherein the wedding dress is trashed.
Some brides go the artistic route.
Others go for hangover chic.
Then there’s the ‘From here to eternity’ look.
There are all sorts of creative ways in which to ruin a wedding dress, but some brides feel they must risk their lives for the shot.
I can only hope this was done with Photoshop
Simple math: rushing water plus a wet wedding dress equals disaster
Maria Pantazopoulos decided to go with a very popular scenario of wading into water. In this case, the Ouareau River which is rife with many drop offs. Maria slipped on the wet stones, her dress, now soaking wet, weighed her down and pulled her under the water. Both the photographer and a good Samaritan tried their best to rescue her, but were unable to save the bride from drowning. Her lifeless body was found by a scuba diver about 100 ft. from where she fell.
Police spokesperson Sgt. Ronald McInnis said the spot where Maria perished wasn’t particularly dangerous. “There’s not a very strong current there, and not much water. Her dress became full of water. It became too heavy.”
Maria was quoted as saying, before the photo shoot, “I want to have fun with my wedding dress. I want to have great pictures and memories of me in my wedding dress”.
This trash the dress thing is stupid. It’s not artistic. It’s not punk rock. It’s just a huge waste of a very expensive dress… and for what, a shot at the next Darwin Award?
Such a waste of a young life, and for what? To prove that you have the money to buy something hideously expensive and then destroy it? I long for the day that brides rent dresses, just like the grooms do the tuxes, and then pass them on for somebody else’s big day. Tacky? Maybe, but not life-threatening.
I completely agree. This is such bratty/entitled behavior… and a stereotypical First World Problem.
Kim and Madame Blogger (Sorry, I feel funny writing Ms. Windupmyskirt)- I couldn’t agree more… her poor family, the groom! Doesn’t bear thinking about.
LOL You can call me Wums if it’s easier.
🙂
This is awful. In a similar vein, it reminds me of an America’s Next Top Model episode where contestants were made to pose as nymphs in freezing water, and one of the models suffered from hypothermia because of it. You’d think they’d put the health of a woman over an absurd fashion concept, but apparently not.
I saw that episode. I remember that poor girl was blue when she came out of the water.
Hey, Wums (sure am glad someone got a good nickname to use for you before I had to ask [8>]) ). Terrible waste of life, as was said earlier.
“I can only hope this was done with Photoshop” As a serious, but still slightly amateur Photocrash……..er…..shop user, I can tell you that is, most definitely, a Photochop. There are several very telling inconsistencies in the picture (which I won’t bore you with, unless you want to know).
Glad you like the moniker 😉 Thanks for the clarification. That makes me feel somewhat better.
I’m glad. I, too would hope that no one would be that anxious to receive a “Darwin”.
People have done a lot worse for a lot less.
🙂 That they have!
Thank god she didn’t breed.