It's a long and stressful road for a woman in the run up to her wedding. Not just for all the obvious planning-related stresses (which really IS very stressful, go figure) but also because a bride, on her wedding day, is expected to look the most perfect version of herself. And when I say 'expected' I don't just mean the imaginary pressures we put upon ourselves of what our family and friends will think, because really, everybody there should be people who love you and would think you look beautiful weighing 58 stone and wearing a plastic bag on your wedding day. It's the added pressures of the beauty standards of all the millions of brides you've seen in bridal magazines, on Pinterest, or on 'say yes to the dress'. It's social media and all your beautiful dancer friends. It's the fact that these photos will last FOREVER AND EVER. But mostly, mostly it's the fact that so many other brides that you've met over the years has put themselves on a strict regime of eating nothing in preparation for the big day. It feels expected.
Each and every little comment from fellow brides who look at you like they're just two eyeballs on a toothpick but their 'dress still doesn't fit' and from people telling you 'don't worry, you'll lose more weight anyway just because of the stress'. All these little niggly comments build up to make you feel more and more inadequate and feel more and more pressure to be perfect and THIN on your big day.
Now, if you've followed any of my blog posts in the past you will know that I've had a very long and complicated relationship with body image, food and diets so I think it would be fair to say that I'm over sensitive and susceptible to the image pressures of being a super slim and perfect bride. After such a long timeline of extreme eating habits from verging on anorexia to dabbling with bulimia before full throttle binging, I've been spending the last couple years trying to cure myself and reach a place of total body confidence. And I've been doing really well. But the stress of the ideal wedding image has started to bring out my old nasty habits and A LOT of internal bullying.
Two weeks ago I had a break through. I just stopped being nasty to myself and started telling myself how beautiful I am. I started to revel in my differences from other girls that I saw all around me and just downright refused to call myself fat anymore. I was in bliss. I had NEVER achieved this for more than five minutes let alone a whole week or so. I put it down to a mixture of the ageing process of not caring what people think so much anymore and also all my hard work and self discovery into beating the food demons.
But, of course, the last couple days, with the wedding only a week away, the little demons have started to tap me on the shoulder and pinch my hip fat once more.
All of the internal stresses and excitement of our upcoming nuptials has caused celebrations, nice food, alcohol and legitimate reasons to be too busy to go to the gym and the girl in the mirror is starting to threaten me again with self deprecating words.
But it needs to stop. We, as women, need to stop confirming to each other that it is important to starve yourself before the big day. That being skinny on your wedding day is the most important aspect and that if you don't you will forever hate yourself in your photos. EVERYONE looks beautiful on their wedding day because they are happy. They are so happy that it beams out of their eyes and smiles and surges from their butt cheeks and armpits.
My dear friend who recently got married said that it upsets her when she sees a perfect cardboard cut out of a starved bride on her wedding day. That she would rather see the 'real' person any day. I now agree with her (though at the time my first thought was 'easy for you to say, you are beautiful and a perfect size 8'). But she is right. I don't want to be the most perfect version of myself. I just want to be my ultimate real self.
I am a human being. I am a woman. I am a bride. I may stress-eat my way to the wedding. I may be bloated with booming tits up to my chin because I'm due on my period. I am real and I am thankful for the body I have. Yes we can always eat better and exercise more. But ultimately it doesn't matter on this day. What matters is that you are there, and he is there, and the people you choose to share it with you are there. What matters is that you smile so much your cheeks ache. What matters is your union.
I hear by promise to rock whatever body I wake up with next Sunday. I promise to cherish it and dance and feel like the most beautiful and loved woman that has ever lived.
I promise to love myself. Because in the words of Whitney Houston "learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all".
*Cracks open a beer. Breaks a nail. Calls off wedding*
