Catherine Marie Meisenburg takes a baseball bat to a wedding cake during a divorce photo shoot.(Photo: Angela Josephine Photography)
The props for Angela Josephine's most recent photo shoot included a wedding dress, a cake, a bouquet and a few cutesy photos of a smiling couple.
It also incorporated a lighter, a baseball bat, a knife and a sharpie with which to write "LIAR" in all capitals across the aforementioned cutesy photos.
You see, this wasn't a normal wedding or engagement or I-just-turned-30-lets-celebrate photo op.
This was a divorce photo shoot.
Dubuque-based photographer Josephine, 25, and, Catherine Marie Meisenburg, her friend who appeared in the photos, have been the subject of much internet buzz for their "separation shoot." Featuring photos of Meisenburg, 24, smashing a cake emblazoned with her former surname, slashing her wedding dress with a knife and lighting those cutesy photos on fire, the album has received 16,000 likes and more than 70,000 shares.
It's also ignited a fierce debate in the comments section over whether commending divorce in such a public way is appropriate.
Catherine Marie Meisenburg drops a bouquet during a divorce photo shoot. (Photo: Angela Josephine Photography)
"Meisenburg celebrated her divorce by staging a scorched-earth, no-(cares)-given photo shoot that resembles a righteously vengeful Miranda Lambert song come to life," New York Magazine wrote of the pictures. "Catherine Marie Meisenburg is a hero."
But some Facebook commenters didn't agree, calling the shoot "sad" and Meisenburg a "crazy woman looking for attention."
"Not to be rude or degrade your work, but this is crass and tasteless to me," one commenter wrote. "Celebrate being single, if anything, but not the divorce. That's sick."
Josephine, a nascent photographer, said during a recent interview that the negative comments don't get to her — too much.
"People are saying that (Meisenburg) is a psycho or that she needs a therapist, but I keep stressing this was just for fun," Josephine said. "It's not like she walks around with a knife and a baseball bat all the time. This was for fun."
Catherine Marie Meisenburg takes a baseball bat to a wedding cake during a divorce photo shoot. (Photo: Angela Josephine Photography)
Memorializing divorce through parties or even divorce rings has been popular for some time, said Susan Stewart, an associate professor of sociology at Iowa State University whose research focuses on families and marriage and divorce.
So even though Stewart has never heard of a divorce photo op, it's really just a new spin on old ideas, she said.
"In general, women are asking for the divorce," Stewart said. "Statistics show that women are initiating divorce more often than men, so I can see why some women may want to take it a step farther and do something like this. It is very, 'I am woman,' very 1970s women liberation."
Stewart said any recent increase in these splitsville celebrations doesn't necessarily mean there are more revelries happening, but that people are celebrating with greater visibility.
"I think this is part of a broader trend of people living online," she said. "And I think it really boils down to the fact that our lives are much more public as a result of social media."
"But there are times where there is going to be relief after divorce," she added. "Obviously the marriage wasn't working, so someone may at least partly feel a sense of happiness along with the negative emotions. In general though, the emotions connected with divorce are very complicated and often very negative."
Catherine Marie Meisenburg steps out of her wedding dress during a divorce photo shoot. (Photo: Angela Josephine Photography)
Meisenburg's feeling surrounding her marriage's dissolution seem to tip toward positive. She told Buzzfeed that many of the photos, including one of her stepping out of the dress, symbolized her "getting out of the relationship."
Josephine didn't charge her friend for the pictures as she is using them to build her professional portfolio. A mother to a 4-year-old and two step-daughters, she works part-time at a grocery store and does photography on the side. Last year, she decided to "go for (her) dream" of being a professional photographer by taking on some paying gigs.
"I used to just do nature photography, but a family member asked me to take family pictures and I did, and I impressed myself, so I started doing more," she said. "I mostly do family and engagement portraits — pretty much anything but weddings.
"I would love to do weddings; I just don't feel comfortable," she added. "I need to build up my confidence."
Catherine Marie Meisenburg takes a knife to her wedding dress during a divorce photo shoot. (Photo: Angela Josephine Photography)
Josephine said she received hundreds of requests to do more divorce photo shoots all over the country, but her children are young so she prefers not to travel. She has scheduled a local divorce shoot for the fall, she said.
Before that, however, she's celebrating her own nuptials. On July 2, she'll walk down the aisle after 7 years with her fiancé — the same amount of time Meisenburg was married.
But she's not worried she'll be the subject of her own shoot sometime anytime soon.
"Oh, no, we have completely different lives and completely different relationships" she said. "But if — god forbid — something did happen, I'd be open to it."
Catherine Marie Meisenburg takes a baseball bat to a wedding cake during a divorce photo shoot. (Photo: Angela Josephine Photography)
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Source: Iowan's divorce photo shoot goes viral
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