Distress the Dress
Emily Sutton had a great time dancing at her wedding May 28 in a white A-line gown.
Three days later, the former Emily Amerson had even more fun in the dress as she slipped into her rappelling harness and a pair of boots, then descended down the cliffs at McConnells Mill State Park.
“It was pretty awesome,” said Sutton, 21, of Chicora.
“I didn't figure heels would be a good idea.”
As part of a photography trend called trash the dress, Sutton and her husband Nick also posed for photographs at the waterfall near Breakneck Bridge and in Lake Arthur at Moraine State Park, where wet sand left Sutton's gown the most dirty.
“You only wear it once,” Sutton said. “You might as well have some fun memories with it.”
Surprisingly, the rappelling was least harmful, since Sutton's dress was modified in advance.
Butler tailor Teresa Esposto cut an opening in the seam around Sutton's waist, then reconnected it with hooks and eyes and covered it with lace.
With the closures unfastened, the 3-inch hole was just big enough to accommodate a carabiner that linked Sutton's climbing rope to the harness she would later wear beneath multiple layers of fabric.
“I never did that before,” said Esposto, who has worked on bridal gowns for 35 years.
Although trash the dress photos can result from diverse activities in a various settings, Nick Sutton had never heard of the trend when he playfully suggested Emily wear her gown while doing the hobby the couple shares.“I was joking with her. I said ‘You should go rappelling in your dress. Ha ha ha,'” said Nick, also 21.“She said, ‘Yeah. That would be fun.'”“I was a little nervous about it at first. I didn't understand how we were going to do it without getting the dress caught in the ropes,” he said.During the daylong photo shoot, the couple was accompanied by several of Nick's friends who also had been part of teaching Emily how to rappel.“It was a little nerve-racking for us: to see how it was going to work,” Nick said.
“Here she is in her wedding dress (and we thought) ‘That's too much stuff to have on you. It's going to throw your balance off. ... She said ‘I'm doing it.' And she went ahead and did it.”Emily suspects she turned some heads throughout the couple's well-planned trek to the three locations.“I think our best reaction was when we went into the lake. There were people swimming ... I heard somebody say ‘Oh my God. She's going in.'“We also went to the waterfall. It wasn't easy to get down. Our poor photographer climbed down rocks to get there,” she said.“My husband's friends — most of them are EMTs and firefighters — they definitely made our day possible. I don't think it would have gone as smoothly without them,” she said.Although it's currently “really filthy,” Emily's dress has not seen its last stint in front of the camera. She plans to have it cleaned and eventually made into baptismal gowns when the couple starts a family.
