“I can’t anymore, it’s too heavy.” Those were the chilling last words of a beautiful Canadian bride who drowned in a river during a photo shoot last week after her wedding dress became soaked and dragged her under. Click below to read the rest.
Maria Pantazopoulos, 30, was having a photographer take shots for a “trash the dress” photo series when she waded into a river near Dorwin Falls in Rawdon, Quebec, at around 2 p.m. Friday, authorities said.
Meant to evoke high-glamor fashion shoots, “trash the dress” photos feature brides posing in gritty or natural settings like beaches, forests or city streets.
Pantazopoulos was married on June 9, but wanted to immortalize the moment with a collection of playful snapshots, a friend said.
Her husband, Billy, wasn’t there for the shoot.
“She’s a really fun girl, and she just didn’t want her wedding dress sitting in a box in the closet,” family friend Leeza Pousoulidis told the Montreal Gazette.
“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.'”
Louis Pagakis, her photographer, was taking some shots near the edge of the river when Pantazopoulos said she wanted to go in.
“At one point, she told him, ‘I want you to take some photos of me floating in the water,'” Anouk Benzacar, the photographer’s wife and a friend of the bride, told Canada’s QMI Agency.
