What Shelby Swink did after her fiancé left her just days before the wedding is a great example of how life is really about the choices you make instead of what happens to you.
Instead of wallowing in self-pity, the jilted bride decided to have a different kind of ceremony on what was to be the wedding day—she invited her bridesmaids to thrash her wedding dress with colorful paint to mark this significant occasion in her life.
The rowdy but light-hearted session was captured by photographer Elizabeth Hoard. The photographs shows Shelby’s strength and resilience in the face of heartbreak—in her words, “I decided that I will not let this tragedy and heartbreak consume me, and bring me down in life.”
The wedding dress was later displayed at the The Barefood Bride boutique in Memphis—for a limited time at the beginning of 2015, a portion of each wedding dress purchased would go to a non-profit organisation that “helps other women learn how to find their inner strength”.
View more of the photos from this unusual wedding photo shoot here.
[via Offbeat Bride, images via Elizabeth Hoard]