Trash The Dress

I recently wrote about re-wearing your wedding dress on the nightlife scene. Now, consider this idea: re-wearing your wedding dress...and covering it in spray paint.

The Today Show recently profiled the "Trash The Dress" phenomenon, in which brides literally trash their gowns post-wedding.

The process can include swimming in your wedding dress, rolling in paint and more. Check out a collection of the photos here.

It's an intriguing process, one many women are willing to define as art.

But not everyone's impressed.

Trash The Dress is often perceived as a selfish concept, as noted in this Jezebel post.

The argument: Why savor destruction for destruction's sake when you can donate your gown to organizations like this one, a charity that helps dress African brides?

Then again, when you start asking questions like that, you risk entering the point of no return. Weddings in our country are driven by excess, and you can just as easily ask a bride why she's spending hundreds on a band that sounds just as good as the tunes on her iPod.

The point is, no matter how frivolous they seem, wedding-related decisions have value to the couple at the ceremony's center.

Especially amid our shaky economy, it's important to remember that everyone views love and commitment differently.

Sometimes, it takes an expensive photo shoot to cement your marital bond. Other times, the task requires nothing more than a few frozen dinners and some cheap reality TV.