Last summer (2012) Dan talked to our friend Brian about taking pictures of us at the beach for a trash the dress shoot as a surprise for my birthday. I have this uncanny knack for guessing most surprises that he has planned for me. This, too, I guessed. I told him that I wanted to be able to fit into my dress if we did it. So we went upstairs, I pulled it out of the closet and put it on. We were able to get the zipper up most of the way, but there was still about two inches left to go. I was devastated and told Dan that I did not want to take the pictures until I felt like I looked good in the dress again. That night he gave me a classic line: "well Erin, it is not surprising that the dress doesn't fit you. You have gotten thicker since we got married." WHAT?!?!? He went on to explain that he meant thick as in muscle in my back that I had never had before, not fat. I know what he means now, but it is still fun to rag on him for calling me thick. Since the dress did not fit how I wanted we decided to wait a year. I decided that I would work out until I got to where I was content with how I looked, and then if it fit good, if not I would make the dress have a corset back and call it a day.
All of the shoots I had seen were on the beach, so I figured that would be where we would do it. Since I now had some time before the shoot I decided to do some research. In the research I saw pictures from all sorts of settings: rolling around in the mud, throwing paint on each other, and throwing wine on each other. Over the last few years we have really grown to enjoy wine and even joined two wine clubs. We decided that we would try and do it at the winery that we first joined and loved to stay at: South Coast Winery Resort and Spa. However, as we began to make plans for our anniversary with staying at the Hotel Del Coronado, we decided that would be a perfect place to do it since it would be on our anniversary and would be at what they claim to be one of the top 10 most iconic beaches in the country.
As time got closer to our anniversary trip I finally felt good about how I was looking, although I was still not sure if the dress would fit. I made plans to go up and visit my Mom and she was going to help me put grommets up the back of the dress so that I could lace up some ribbon to keep the back together if the zipper would not zip up all the way. Before we left I pulled out the dress and decided to try it on, and much to my surprise it fit! I was so excited that I could not wait for our picture time. I did end up taking the dress up with me so that my Mom could help me touch up some guacamole stains (or what looked like guacamole) on the back of my dress. Yeah someone spilled on the back of my dress and I didn't even know it until 7 years later. She pulled out a Tide pen and it worked wonders!
We had a great time during the shoot. Our friend Brian Jones did an AMAZING job! He was wearing his work clothes, but did not hesitate to get knee deep in the water with us. People kept coming up to us congratulating us on our wedding (we had to tell time it was our anniversary), and people even started taking pictures of us and asking if we were models. Nope, just having a fun anniversary adventure!
And now, without further adieu...our pictures:
