Weddingbee Blog

Like most people, I suffer from the malady of time passing faster as I get older. When I finished my recaps half a year had passed since our wedding. In the blink of an eye, another half year was gone, and we’d made it to the one-year mark. Last September, we celebrated our paper anniversary in a quiet cliff-top house on Orcas Island, eating wedding cake and watching Fight Club. (Why Fight Club? Don’t ask… I’ve no idea. As for the cake, it was actually DELICIOUS. Ya just have to store it right!)

Aside from cards, cake, and champagne, we only really had one special thing planned…a Trash the Dress shoot with our friend and fabulous wedding photographer, Kate McElwee. I didn’t want to actually “trash” my dress because I had just had it cleaned and was coming to terms with the idea of someday selling it. (I still might. Soon.) I really just wanted an excuse to put it on and feel like a bride again… to celebrate our wedding in style. So that’s what we did!

If you remember that far back, Kate also shot my boudoir photos. I knew she was super-rad when I met her, and when I decided to pursue photography as a career, she became somewhat of a mentor to me. I second-shot a wedding with her last summer, and her candid advice as been invaluable. Sadly, Kate’s husband’s job was took them from Seattle to Boston last September. Before the move, Kate told me she wanted to do one last TTD shoot in Seattle and asked Mr. CP and me to be her models. Would we? HECK yeah!

We decided on an edgier, urban shoot to contrast with our country wedding, so I paired my dress with some aggressive heels, borrowed some jewelry by Rockstella from my favorite store, had my makeup done by Melissa Korn, and crazied up my hair a bit. Mr. CP put on his custom Kuhlman’s suit and we were good to go!

We started our shoot in Georgetown, south of downtown, by some warehouses near the rail yard…

A side note about this next photo… We had the idea to get both of us up on the ledge that Mr. CP is standing on. He tried to help me up while Kate stood behind, and all of us almost met with disaster. While pulling me onto the ledge, Mr. CP came unbalanced and fell, nearly knocking into Kate and her camera, rolling to a stop across the pavement. I fell, too (though not as far)… but somehow we were all OK and there wasn’t a nick or stain to show for it!

With it being our anniversary, and for me the first time in a year I’d put on my wedding digs, we were soon feeling very romantic. We gave an eye-full to a couple of baffled truck drivers before heading off to the Olympic Sculpture Park to finish our shoot. We got plenty of stares there, too. Of course, everyone thought we had just been married and congratulated us accordingly. Who were we to correct them?

We only had about 20 minutes to shoot in the park before the sun went down, but Kate made the most of it, and we got some absolutely gorgeous images with incredible sunset colors…

… this final image even placed second in the “Pure Art” category of the annual International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers awards. Way to go, Kate!

How about you guys? Have you considered a one-year-anniversary Trash the Dress session?