A newlywed who drowned during a photo shoot in her wedding dress was purposefully in the water to take part in a popular ritual called ‘Trash the Dress’, it has emerged.
The practice, in which brides pose for pictures while playfully destroying their wedding gowns, had tragic consequences for Maria Pantazopoulos, when she was dragged under the water by the weight of her soaked dress.
”I can’t anymore, it’s too heavy,” she cried before letting go of the photographer and slipping under to her death, the Toronto Sun reported.
The 30-year-old real estate agent, who had just bought a home with her new husband, was pulled into the Ouareau River near Dorwin Falls, north of Montreal, on Friday afternoon.
Her body was found about two-and-a-half hours later. Her bridal gown and high-heeled wedding shoes were later pictured lying on rocks along the river bed.
Pantazopoulos had commissioned the shoot following her June 9 wedding and instructed the photographer, Louis Pagakis, to snap away while she was in the water.
At one point, she told him, “I want you to take some photos of me floating in the water”,’ the photographer’s wife, Anouk Benzacar, said.
But within moments of climbing in she realised that the weight of the soaked wedding dress was pulling her under.
She was screaming and scratching and trying to stay above water, Benzacar said. ‘[Louis] tried to swim with her, but she was pulling him down. She was too heavy. He couldn’t breathe anymore.’
Pagakis said that he did everything he could to save her.
”She had her wedding dress on and she said, “take some pictures of me while I swim a little bit in the lake,”‘ he said.
“She went in and her dress got heavy, I tried everything I could to save her. She’s a really fun girl, and she just didn’t want her wedding dress sitting in a box in the closet,’ she said.
‘She said, “I want to have fun with my wedding dress. I want to have great pictures and memories of me in my wedding dress.”‘
”I want to have fun with my wedding dress. I want to have great pictures and memories of me in my wedding dress”
The soaked dress would have weighed at least 100 pounds, provincial policeman Jean-Michel Masse said. ‘It was like an anvil,’ he added to the QMI news agency.
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