Brittany Bloemke stood alongside a picturesque waterfall near Northfield, Minn., in her wedding gown and heels, hair and makeup perfectly in place.

When photographer Justin Graddy suggested she pose against a cliff, she hiked up the dress to her knees, clambered up the slippery rocks and gave the camera a sultry stare.

She then called for her pink polka-dotted rain boots, climbed down and walked backwards -- under the waterfall.

As the water drenched Bloemke and her gown, she joined a growing number of modern brides who are "trashing" their gowns after their weddings in exchange for stunning, high-fashion pictures that they can add to their wedding album.

"This is another opportunity to freeze time and remember the fun times you had in the dress that you will probably never wear again," said Bloemke, 23, of Savage. "Chances are my daughter will only want bits and pieces of the dress anyway, so why not do something crazy and unexpected with it?"

For generations of brides who professionally cleaned and boxed their gowns for a future daughter, the idea of soiling your dress for art's sake is close to sacrilege.

But the chance to buck tradition is precisely why brides love these photo sessions. There's no family pressure or wedding day jitters. Photographers and brides can work together to take edgy photos that resemble images ripped out of a fashion magazine, not scores of stiff, staged photos with extended family members. And unlike on the wedding day, the brides can relax. No concern about perfect coifs and ceremony snafus.

"Today you don't have to be anywhere at any certain time and it doesn't matter if your dress gets dirty," she said.

Plus these sessions tend to be all about the bride. "It is fun getting makeup done and taking pictures and kind of feeling like a model for a little bit," said Phelan, 27, of Plymouth, who's a cheerleader for the Minnesota Vikings.

As for her gown, it didn't exactly escape the wedding night unscathed anyway. Her husband, Lucas, stepped on it as the couple walked into the reception "and he basically ripped like a huge, huge hole," she said.

During the shoot, Phelan tiptoed across the top of the falls and lay on a rock. Later, she crouched in the water so Graddy could get a picture of her gown floating around her waist. At the end of the shoot her dress was dripping, but not noticeably stained.

It helped that she bought the designer dress used for $1,000 instead of paying sticker price, "so it didn't really bother me that it was really ripped and trashed at the end of the night and now I get to do it again before I get it fixed."

Creative outlet

The brides were undaunted by the elements. The water was freezing. Sopping wet layers of satin and tulle are heavy. Bloemke lost an eyelash and the creek was filled with fish -- which she fears. Still, the shoot was "a blast," she said. "I want to do it again."

While the "soak the dress" water shots are popular, some brides opt to keep themselves and their dresses dry. Some photo sessions show the bride perched atop a rusty car in a junkyard or strolling through an abandoned building.

Troy Kivel, a St. Paul freelance photographer, said he scopes out "really nasty buildings" with no-trespassing signs. Think smelly, graffiti-covered, broken beer bottle-littered warehouses, places where "you probably need a tetanus shot to go in," he said.

And he always asks brides: "How far do you want to take it?" For some, the answer is as far as they can.

Wedding photographer Michelle Huber said she had a bride request a photo with her dress ablaze.

Huber, of Prescott, Wis., loves "trash the dress" sessions because they allow her another creative outlet. But client safety comes first. So she set some white cloth on fire and combined the images using computer software instead. The photo turned out, "but I swore I'd never put it on my website because I was afraid of other brides wanting that," she said.

Justin and Chrissy Graddy, the husband and wife photo-team from New Prague who organized the shoot at the waterfall south of the Twin Cities (they don't want the exact spot revealed), charged $200 per bride during the daylong event. Friends who booked sessions at the same time received discounts. The typical rate is $300.

Some photographers include a day-after session as part of the photo package for the wedding, while others offer it a la carte.

The Graddys call their sessions "rock the dress" because the more commonly used "trash the dress" phrase can turn off brides who don't want to go to the extreme of spray painting their dresses or setting them on fire. (Google "trash the dress," and you'll see that some brides have gone that far.)

And many of the brides still plan to repair and clean their dresses after the shoot, including Bloemke.

"God invented OxiClean and Shout for a reason," she said.

Kara McGuire • 612-673-7293