No, currently AngularUI and many other frameworks use the Date object to bind information. You need to format the date to a string each time you want it as a string. The way to do this is to create a function like
$scope.getMyDateAsString = function(){
return myDate.toString(); // or however you format your string.
};
Then anytime you want to get the string you can call this function. You CAN create a watcher
$scope.$watch($scope.myDateModel, function(newVal, oldVal){
$scope.myDateAsString = $scope.getMyDateAsString();
});
This way, anytime the datepicker changes value, you change the value of the string.