Would you postpone wedded bliss for weight-loss?

10th June 2008

Would you postpone wedded bliss for weight-loss?

posted in Body Image, Diets, Eating Disorders, Personal, Pop Culture |

My husband and I decided to get married just one month before we said our “I do’s.” We had both decided a traditional wedding wasn’t our style and we also didn’t want to postpone our pre-decided date (July 25 – the day we met) another two years until it fell on a day that would be most convenient for others to attend. Many brides and grooms get cold feet, but my premarital jitters had absolutely nothing to do with the man I was to marry or even the hetero-patriarchal act of marriage itself. No, my one and looming concern is that I would forever look at my wedding photos and instantly think “I looked so… fat.”

So, here’s my confessional: In June of last year, I decided to diet. Of course I didn’t call it a diet; I simply resolved to cut down on my carb intake. One week into a steady and insanely boring diet of eggs, salad and veggie burgers sans bread, I found myself perusing the diet pill aisles at the pharmacy. I felt guilty if I didn’t exercise at the gym every night. I began to count calories again. I may have even purged. In short – I did many of the things I used to do when I was actively eating disordered. I even considered postponing the wedding till the following year, in hopes perhaps that the magical weight-loss fairy would sprinkle some of her sparkly slimming dust on me so I wouldn’t be as fat come my wedding day.

Recovery doesn’t mean you won’t slip up from time-to-time. There is no “cure” for an eating disorder; the best we can hope for is to learn ways in which we can manage our disorders in a healthy and constructive manner. And regardless of what stage of recovery one is at or how long they’ve been there, many of us can never diet. Not ever. For someone recovering from an eating disorder, dieting is equivalent to a recovering alcoholic taking “just one sip.” It’s a road best left untravelled. But being in recovery also means being cognizant of your disorder and its mental and physical trappings. I recognized that I was teetering on a very slippery slope and immediately worked on stopping the behaviors and silencing what I affectionately call “that bitch in my head” (TBIMH). Yes, even in recovery she lives, but with time, it gets easier to ignore her.

I’ve never been one of those kinds of girls who dreams of a fairytale pretty princess wedding, but my wedding did mark one of the most important days of my life. I put a muzzle on TBIMH and had a serious talk with my inner-self, the part of me where logic and ration still miraculously reside. After all, my decisions now affected not just me and my life, but also that of another human being whose life is now inextricably intertwined with mine. One of the reasons Brandon and I decided to “elope” is because we wanted the ceremony to be especially memorable for us. How could I let a corset-back gown and a little back-fat stand in my way of our shared wedded bliss? And how long would I continue allowing my body and my insecurities over it dictate my – and our – future happiness?

I didn’t and our wedding went off without a hitch. But according to the June issue of Fitness magazine one in five women would postpone her nuptials if she were not at her goal weight by her wedding date. The magazine conducted a study of 1,000 brides-to-be in a nauseatingly-titled article “Bridezilla Confessions!”

Some results showed:

• 83 percent of the brides wanted to lose weight before the wedding, and 33 percent wanted to lose 30 pounds or more. Only 14 percent said they were already at their ideal weight.
• 36 percent would take weight loss pills or supplements to get rid of weight; 43 percent would double their workout time; 6 percent would try weight-loss surgery
• 29 percent would be willing to move in with their mother-in-law if it meant reaching their ideal weight by their wedding day
• 80 percent want a gown that conceals their belly; 46 percent want a dress that shows off their cleavage; and 32 percent want a dress that camouflages back fat.
• 2 percent said they’d rather overhear, “She looks thin” on their wedding day; 46 percent want to hear, “She looks happy;” and 52 percent would rather overhear, “She looks so beautiful.”

Of course, it should be noted that Fitness magazine is hardly the bastion of positive body self-acceptance and with more than half of its pages devoted to weight-loss, it’s not a far leap to conjecture that its readers aren’t also disproportionately interested in weight-loss. So, the study is perhaps not the most accurate representation of a national cross-section of brides-to-be. But here’s the real kicker: More than half of the women surveyed – 63 percent – say their fiance wouldn’t change a thing about their body, suggesting our perfect-body-pressures to be self-inflicted. From bridal boot camps to crash starvation diets, ladies… why do we torture ourselves so?

I didn’t lose a single pound for my wedding, even after finding *the* dress in a smaller size on clearance. The old disordered me would have rationalized that, of course I could drop 15 pounds just three weeks, especially with such a beautiful dress providing the thinspiration to do so. The recovered me instead had my gown altered to fit my current weight and body, even though the short three-week time frame had my poor seamstress working overtime (for which I paid dearly).

Now, as I approach our one-year anniversary, I look at my wedding album and I remember the glint of sun like carnival glass on the lake as we took the ferry across to the island with Victorian mansions nestled into a mountainside of lush green vegetation. I remember the bed of heart-shaped flowers left by the thoughtful Jamaican maid in our room at the bed-and-breakfast in whose front yard English garden we were married. I remember reading the vows that even I, a writer, couldn’t manage to articulate until just that morning. I remember the tremble of my husband’s lip as he read his beautiful words to me and the gentle brush of his hand as he wiped away the tears that slight quiver brought. I remember the passers-by who gathered to watch clap and cheer as we sealed our marriage with a kiss and the congratulations and well-wishes from perfect strangers as our carriage passed through the island’s downtown district. I remember smiling so much my face hurt afterwards. Most of all, I remember being so gloriously happy and in love and the feeling that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

The photos, now displayed prominently in our home, spark the memories of a hundred little details of that day – “I look so fat” is not amongst them.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Body Image, Diets, Eating Disorders, Personal, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 On June 10th, 2008, MrsDrC said:

No. I would not. I’m glad you did not.

When in High School, there was a Senior who was getting married just DAYS after graduation. She spent every class period of her Senior year of High School fretting and making herself insane over wedding details.

One day our chior director stopped her yammering and she became rather upset with him. She “had” to figure these details out. He told rather matter of factly “If you put half the effort into your MARRIAGE that you are putting into the WEDDING, you’ll be fine.” She became even more upset, I believe tears were involved. What he said stuck with me.

A wedding is a day, a marriage is a life.

We eloped too. We gave our families three days notice. Our fifteenth wedding anniversary is in August.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

2 On June 10th, 2008, pennylane said:

She looks so happy!

(And that little bit about your husband’s quivering lip just made me blubber a bit.)

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

3 On June 10th, 2008, Elizabeth said:

We had 6 months between engagement and wedding. I thought I should diet. It made sense, you know? that’s just what people do when they get married, plus the e.d.’ed girl inside me still had a tendancy to use big events as weightloss excuses. I decided I would cut out all potatoes (my favourite food) and be particularly ‘mindfull’ of everything else. This spiraled, as you’ve already pointed out and after 3 or 4 months I hadn’t lost any weight and was too sad. My husband thought we should be eating chocolate together on a regular basis in celebration. And he thought it was silly/sad that i’d stopped eating french fries. At month four I stopped and also happened to start taking b.c. in anticipation. On my wedding day I was about 10pounds heavier than the day we got engaged. And I really don’t care. I loved our wedding and it didn’t matter what size I was.
Congratulations to you and your love.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 6:23 pm

4 On June 10th, 2008, Chrissy said:

You look so beautiful and happy!

I’m not married, but my sister is getting married next year, and right now she’s all about how fat and terrible looking she is. Now, her saying that to me is really scary because where as I am definitely fat, she’s a size 10. She was talking about going dress shopping with my mother this weekend, and she told me how “disappointing” it was because wedding dresses always run a size larger than your regular dress size, and therefore she was a size 12 in her wedding dress.

I really hope she doesn’t go crazy about it. But she’s really unhappy with the way she looks. To be honest, I think she looks better now than she did before, and I’ve told her so. I said to her before she told me about the dress-disappointment that I thought she had the perfect proportions for clothes and dresses. She then launched into how fat and ugly she is, and it made me sad. But, I guess she’s like almost every woman that article cited. It just bothers me because I can’t talk to her about it without her getting defensive.

Now for something a bit more positive: I’d also like to share this video, which I found earlier. It’s another “Target Women” about Weddings! (The Yogurt one was soooo funny!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLerM2PAQsU

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 6:43 pm

5 On June 10th, 2008, Quick Hits: Weight and Weddings « All My Jiggly Bits said:

[...] I was on the way over here to post when I stopped by the F-Word and read Rachel’s post on postponing weddings due to desired weight loss. What do you all [...]

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 6:51 pm

6 On June 10th, 2008, Becky said:

That’s my biggest fear too =/ I’m not dieting (even though I have plenty of time until the wedding) because I know it’s not good for me physically or emotionally, and because I know it’s stupid to lose weight for the wedding only to yo-yo it back on during the marriage, and because I am a stubborn and contrary person and the more people and media sources that tell me I should lose weight for my wedding, the more I want to refuse just to spite them. But I am still dreading the hell out of those wedding pictures.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 7:06 pm

7 On June 10th, 2008, Rachel said:

Becky – We hired a skilled photographer who knew exactly the most flattering positions to put one in so they look their best. I was afraid of how our photos would turn out, but when they came I saw that I was worried for nothing. She didn’t make me look thin, but she did maximize my figure so that my most flattering sides showed. There were a few photos in which I saw my back fat, but overall, I had many more good photos than bad ones, so it evened things out.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

8 On June 10th, 2008, AndyJo said:

You look unbelievably beautiful, he looks incredibly handsome, and you both look like you are over the moon with your happiness…

Happy Anniversary!!! May the future bring many, many, many more…

–Andy Jo–

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 8:04 pm

9 On June 10th, 2008, Christie said:

Firstly, I think you looked just stunning on your wedding day

Secondly… I’m getting married in a year. I have been engaged before and last time I played the game of 2 pounds per week, I’ll lost X amount for my wedding. All that got me was a year and a half long engagement without ever even setting a date, and then we broke up for various reasons.
This time around I have found intuitive eating and I am happy. Truly happy for once. I am also at my highest weight ever at this point in time… and I realize that even if the stars align in my favor, the best I would probably do is be back to my lowest weight in one year, which is 50 pounds less than I am now. But I might not even get that far. Because I refuse to diet ever again.

What I realized though is that I DON’T CARE! I would get married at this current weight and I’d be happy!!!! And that feels good. I’m in love, and my wedding will be awesome. I am not going to worry about what I weigh. Whatever happens naturally over the next year, I’ll take it.

It feels so. damn. good.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 8:09 pm

10 On June 10th, 2008, Lindsey said:

To echo everyone else, you do indeed look amazing, and so radiant and happy. And did you and your hubby get married on Lake Geneva? (which would totally be an amazing spot, it’s so incredibly gorgeous) =O (The description just sounds a lot like what I remember it looking like when I went there.)

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 8:35 pm

11 On June 10th, 2008, Godless Heathen said:

That is one fantastic dress, you looked amazing in it! And happy!

I got hitched in front of the Justice of the Peace, it was one thing on a list of a billion things we needed to do before we moved from one state to another. We wedged it in between taking our stuff out of storage and loading everything into the moving truck. I was fat on the day I got married, and I probably looked fat too. That’s not what I’ll remember most about that day and that’s the way it should be.

The whole wedding industry seems tailored around making women feel inadequate so they will spend, spend, spend to correct flaws they don’t have and overcompensate for things they think are wrong with themselves. It’s hard to relax and be happy when there are a billion pages of magazines showing tiny, slender brides with more dress and kitsch than you could ever afford. It’s stressful even for small women to meet these ridiculous standards! All men usually do is rent a tux, and I doubt most men plan on postponing the wedding so they can rent the smallest size possible.

A day isn’t perfect because of how you look, or how much you spent on it, a day is perfect because you are happy. My man wore a loud tropical shirt and jean shorts, I wore a broomstick skirt and tee, we didn’t have rings or vows or flowers or guests, and it was a perfect day.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

12 On June 10th, 2008, Cyn said:

“My husband thought we should be eating chocolate together on a regular basis in celebration.” Elizabeth, I so agree with your husband!

When I get married, I won’t diet at all. He fell in love with the fat me, not the skinny me, nor with the moody-bridezilla-who-has-a-bit-of-an-attitude-because-she-hasn’t-had-carbs-in-months me. Definitely not. Why would he marry with someone he doesn’t love? Actually, I was much fatter when we met. If he wanted to marry Heidi Klum, then he would have done it.

The same goes for women who wear coloured contact lenses on their wedding day. He fell in love with the brown-eyed you, not with the blue-eyed you. It just doesn’t make sense.

Stay the way you are, always. And like MrsDrC’s teacher said, put more effort on your lives together than on a momentary party that is going to be awesome, but won’t last forever.

And you look glorious, Rachel. The wedding description is so beautiful!

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

13 On June 10th, 2008, Blablover5 said:

Wow, that is a really pretty dress. It’s so nice to see one that isn’t a strapless, a-line cookie cutter one.

I’m in the middle of doing the wedding planning stuff and it is so sad and disheartening to see so many adult women asking and pleading how to lose 10 lbs in two weeks, or if they will be a beautiful bride if they’re lumpy.

There’s just such an insane amount of emphasis put on being this mythical creature (personally I’d rather be a phoenix) that no one can really live up to it, so it’s no wonder women have freak outs of monumental proportions now.

I’ve never talked about trying to lose weight to be a bride and luckily I have a friend who just recently got married and she said that she’s just going to buy a dress that fits her and not try to drop 30 lbs in 4 months.

I wish there was a switch that we could pull that would just magically remove all of this insanity around weddings.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 10:16 pm

14 On June 10th, 2008, Diana said:

What a beautiful picture – I’m so glad that you have found happiness together.

My husband and I got married earlier than we were planning – family issues made the “original” wedding date unappealing, so we eloped on St. Paddy’s day last year. I’d had a feeling that it might happen like that, and my friend who was making my wedding dress had it done weeks in advance. There was no room for “I’ll lose weight to fit into it…” She made it the size I measured at, and figured if something happened in the meantime, we’d deal with it then.

It was beautiful. I was beautiful. We are so happy. My only regret of the day….I didn’t get a good full length picture of the dress!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/red-headed-stepchild/453306229/in/set-72157601112021483/

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

15 On June 10th, 2008, Jamie said:

I always find it funny that people find it necessary to lose weight for a big event so they look good in pictures, when they don’t look like that the rest of their life. That one event is their motivation to change their habits temporarily and slim down, just to go back to where they were. This whole thing is ludicrous.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

16 On June 10th, 2008, Liza said:

Isn’t there a show about that now?

I guess the best thing to do would be to remind yourself that THIS is who the fiance(e) fell in love with, and they (as your survey said) probably wouldn’t change a thing. If you got desperate, you could probably explain your concerns to your person and ask them to tell them what they like about your body.

If I ever get married, I’m thinking Vegas…or City Hall. I’m wearing jeans.

posted on June 10th, 2008 at 11:36 pm

17 On June 11th, 2008, cowshark said:

OMFG, that Bulging Brides crap in the Target Women vid! WTF, just get the dress in a bigger size! No one’s gonna look down the back of your dress and see what size it is, and if anyone tries to slip a finger down the bodice, they’d be pulling back a damn stump. I swear, if those gym bunny douchebags came up to me and hassled me about my dress size, I’d punch them in the nads.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 12:15 am

18 On June 11th, 2008, Cyn said:

Diana, your dress is AMAZING. Are those green things four-leaf clovers? Hats off to your friend. And hats off to you for choosing such an awesome dress!

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 3:18 am

19 On June 11th, 2008, vicky smith said:

No, I would never change the date just so I could lose a few pounds. I understand how strong the desire can be, everyone’s eyes will be on you that day, you stand out from everyone but no one else will think you need to diet, especially your partner. Dieting will add extra stress to the wedding.

No matter what your size, it’s always going to be your day.

Vx

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 5:21 am

20 On June 11th, 2008, nuckingfutz said:

Ya know, I never even had time to think about it. We only had a week between deciding on a date and the date actually arriving to plan things, so weight loss wasn’t even in the picture. We were just desperate to be married to each other (and have a way to legally stay together; he was in the US on a visitor’s visa from the UK and neither of us could bear the thought of being separated) – everything else was simply details. We decided to get married the next weekend, I planned my work week around getting the marriage license and whatnot, and I was going to just buy myself a nice dress for the wedding, since we were doing it at the courthouse. But I got lucky – a co-worker heard that I was getting married, and brought me a beautiful pink satin & lace dress that fit me PERFECTLY. And just let me have it. (It’s kind of funny, too, because me, hubby, and the 2 oldest kids [who were the ONLY kids at the time] ended up matching. I wore that dress, Hubby wore a nice blue shirt, Number One Daughter wore her blue Easter dress from that year, and The Little Helper wore HER pink Easter dress from that year.)

At the time, though, if I’d had a long, drawn-out, actually PLANNED wedding? I probably would have dieted my ass off. I don’t know that I would have postponed it if I hadn’t lost “enough” weight, but I was so into my self-loathing and dieting phase that I’m almost positive I would have at least attempted to diet before hand.

In a way, I’m almost glad that we ended up doing it the way we did. For us, it was all about the marriage, not so much the wedding. Sometimes, yeah, I wish I had those kinds of pictures to look back on, but I know it saved us a whole lot of frustration and stress doing it the way we did.

And Rachel, you look absolutely gorgeous in your wedding photo! Stunning!

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 6:26 am

21 On June 11th, 2008, wriggles said:

Assuming that is the real reason for the postponement.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 6:30 am

22 On June 11th, 2008, glt said:

Now that Amazon is back up, I checked out their page on Moose, which makes it sound much, much better than Newsweek did. So maybe it’s just Newsweek.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 8:21 am

23 On June 11th, 2008, glt said:

Oh, crap, I posted in the wrong place. I am so SMRT.

24 On June 11th, 2008, DivaJean said:

Dieting during the engagement phase seems so off to me. I did not do that 15 years ago before my wedding to my partner. First off- it’s the most stressful time– trying to coordinate everything for the wedding day AND working on how the new life together is going to be. Add to that the time factor– eating more convenience foods, take out, eating out, etc. Then throw in the whole test tasting what foods to serve at the reception, etc.

My mother was appalled that I would not consider weight loss before I walked down the aisle- and she was the one making my dress. I kept a very close eye on the dress making process- so she wouldn’t get any bright ideas like making the dress a few sizes too small to force me to diet. But then again, my whole wedding itself was nothing like anything at the time- the first big lesbian wedding in our community, complete with media fanfare (still not recognized in New York State BTW!). I had a long talk with her as to how it is truly my life and my choices- and if I wanted to be a big fat lesbian walking down the aisle in my dress she made- then that’s how it should be. She had to agree- and has not hassled me since.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 8:44 am

25 On June 11th, 2008, Rachel said:

Good for you DivaJean And thanks for the kind word and sentiments, everyone.

Lindsey: We got married on Mackinac Island in Michigan’s upper peninsula.

Chrissy: That video? Is hilarious. I love those Target Women shows.

MrsDrC: One of the reasons we decided to “elope” is because we both heard a Talk of the Nation show on NPR about average weddings and how they cost $28k or something now. We both talked about how insane that was and if we had that kind of cash, we’d invest it in our home. Too many people put so much time and effort in ONE DAY of their lives, and not nearly so much effort in their MARRIAGES. Plus, we’re both not showy kinds of people and we wanted the day to be exactly how we wanted it to be, and not just a show for others.

Diana: What a unique and beautiful dress! When I looked at gowns, it seemed like most looked the same. That’s the reason I was so enthralled by the dress I did get, even though it was a smaller size. It was the only one of its kind and it wasn’t lily-white; the color on the label says “spun gold.” My husband wore a cream-colored suit and I thought stark white would contrast, and plus, off-white or gold looked better with my complexion and newly-red-free blonde hair (I’ve since gone back to the red).

And can anyone tell my why 99 percent of wedding gowns are strapless? That’s the one thing I was most insecure about. Because I lost a drastic amount of weight in a short amount of time, my skin couldn’t contract fast enough and I have lots of loose skin on my arms and abdomen. I could hide the abdominal skin okay, but how can you hide batwings in a strapless gown? Even the dresses for plus-size girls at David’s Bridal are all strapless.. Grrrr!!

Okay, for everyone here who’s gotten married, you have to post pics of your dress. I would never have imagined I’d be this into wedding dresses before my own wedding but now after hearing how beautiful everyone’s dresses are, my curiosity is piqued. You can see close-ups of my gown below:

Detail #1

Detail #2

Detail #3

Bodice detail

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 9:08 am

26 On June 11th, 2008, Becky said:

And can anyone tell my why 99 percent of wedding gowns are strapless?

I would like to know that too! I’m not really insecure about my arms, but strapless just isn’t the most flattering look for my rack of doom (nor is a strapless bra!!)

Rachel, that is a beautiful dress, and you look radiant in it. (Also, you wore your glasses! Yay! I’m wearing mine too.) Thanks for helping set my mind at ease about the pictures.

I ordered this dress online for my wedding next year, I’m hoping it will be the one. (Look, straps!) I have a very similar gown from Igigi that looks amazing on me, so I think this one will too.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 9:58 am

27 On June 11th, 2008, nuckingfutz said:

Oh, Becky, that’s BEAUTIFUL!!!

Even though my dress wasn’t really a wedding dress, I’m going to try to scan a picture later. I wanted to scan one of my wedding pictures for something else ANYWAY, but if I can figure out how to do it I’ll post it here.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 10:04 am

28 On June 11th, 2008, Rachel said:

Becky – I considered that dress, too! I decided I wanted to go a little bit more formal though since my husband was getting so dudded up. Of course, formal didn’t work out so well when our photographer had us traipsing along the beach. My dress is still dirty.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 10:08 am

29 On June 11th, 2008, blablover5 said:

I’ve still got about 5 months to go but here is my dress that is actually a bridesmaid dress.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/blablover5/dress.jpg

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 10:51 am

30 On June 11th, 2008, Yorke said:

Wow, you look fantastic! Congrats on the first anniversary, too.

Reading this makes me happy for those of you who took the plunge and didn’t buy into the horrible wedding industry bullshit, yet sad that I let it get to me. I didn’t have a wedding. I thought about one, started looking at dresses (and right? Mostly flippin’ strapless?) and I felt the voices of restriction, purging, and misery creeping in. I started obsessing about my arms and I just nearly cracked. I knew I couldn’t do it. I wear jeans and long sleeves all year… I knew I couldn’t have a wedding.

It really is shitty how we’re conditioned to believe we have to be tiny princesses on our wedding day to be acceptable and take good photos. It’s also shitty how an ED, even one we’ve mostly recovered from, can impact us so heavily. I really admire you overcoming it and TBIMH for the sake of yourself and husband.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 11:04 am

31 On June 11th, 2008, Zaftige said:

Oh! ***SWOON***! SO Romantic!! And that is EXACTLY what it is supposed to be. I’m so happy for you. Also, where is that? Because it’s gorgeous!

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 11:36 am

32 On June 11th, 2008, Oh, hey! It’s Wednesday! « Prioritizing the Paranoias said:

[...] days I wonder how any of us manages to crawl out of bed in the morning*. And while today’s F-word post is about body image as it relates to weddings, what’s sticking in my head most at the moment [...]

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 11:45 am

33 On June 11th, 2008, JeanC said:

At no time did I ever even think of dieting for my wedding, then again, by then I was happily into FA and happy with my body.

For the first wedding (we got married in Canada for immigration purposes) and I wore the bridesmaid dress I had from a friend’s wedding. Since we were getting married by a marriage commissioner we didn’t got too terribly formal:

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~bjcraw/graphics/me/ME!11.html

For the real wedding (I wasn’t going to be denied my walk down the aisle on my dad’s arm) I had a more formal dress. Since I look hideous in white, I went with a lovely shade of purple. The dress is a combination of two gowns as I loved the main part of the one pattern, but hated that stupid bow on the back, so my roomie and maid of honor got the pattern for the back of a gown she’d had made previously and it fit my dress perfectly:

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~bjcraw/graphics/dress/dress5.html
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~bjcraw/graphics/dress/dress2.html

I really need to re-scan all my wedding pictures

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

34 On June 11th, 2008, JeanC said:

Oops, the first link broke, try this:

http://tinyurl.com/5bue5j

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

35 On June 11th, 2008, Rachel said:

Just a note for plus-size brides-to-be, Colleen at Pretty Pear has a good post upabout new selections for blushing brides.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

36 On June 11th, 2008, nuckingfutz said:

I finally got it (took me like 20 minutes). Here:

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c175/NuCkInGfUtZ_/WeddingDay01.jpg

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

37 On June 11th, 2008, Victoria C said:

As others have said, you and your dress were both beautiful.

We had 11 months between announcement of the engagement to family and friends and the wedding – plenty of time to become the most beautiful bride I could be, no? Unfortunately, real life stepped in and we found ourselves struck with some unforeseeable problems four months before the wedding. We had to move to a tiny flat with no space nor time for the home cooking we both love to do. I react badly to instant prepared foods with simple carbs, and our weights increased as our health decreased – the weight not so much an issue as our feeling poorly, as I’m a firm believer in HAES, but my dress had to be let out. I weighed about 50 lbs more on my special day than I did when we became engaged, but it was our union and our happiness in front of friends and family that mattered.

Here’s an anonymised pic of me and my groom – the dress was lovely at original size but letting it out made it a bit shapeless. The seamstress did a great job, though. http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll227/prazezastavka/wedding.jpg

So, in answer to your question, no we didn’t

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

38 On June 11th, 2008, Juliet said:

Rachel, what a gorgeous dress… you were a beautiful bride.

Like you, I had next to no time to plan a wedding. We were married 5 weeks after my husband’s surprise proposal because we’d already had a vacation to Vegas book. We were married in the desert at sunset and it was perfect.

I don’t look at my pictures and think about how fat I look. I look at them and think I was never more beautiful. I remember walking through the casino as a bride, and people were pointing and making “oooing and ahhing sounds” and for once, I didn’t think they were looking at me because I was fat.

Never in a million years would I have waited. I happened to be on Weight Watchers at the time, and I did have a goal in mind that it would be nice to weigh less than what I did the day I met him, and actually I wound up doing that (by like 1 pound)… but I didn’t diet to fit into a dress, and I wouldn’t have waited to try to lose more weight than I could in those five weeks, either. So even caught up in the dieting mentality, it wouldn’t have been worth waiting!

We also basically eloped. It was just the two of us because, like you two, we wanted our special day to be about our love and our life together and not about all the family drama and pageantry. And I was one of those girls who dreamed of the princess type wedding before I met my husband! Just goes to prove that if you’re with the right person, it’s not about what your dress size is or having the “perfect” wedding… it’s about the person you are marrying. As it should be!

I do wish I’d known about Zaftique at the time, though. I ordered my dress from Roamans and though it was pretty, it wasn’t a true wedding dress, which would’ve been nice.

I am glad you have such good memories of your wedding. I think along the same lines as you, when I think of mine… I remember the wind (it was crazy windy), the poems we read each other and the look in my husband’s eye and how my makeup came out perfect and I felt so pretty and natural and loved…

So what if I weighed 379 pounds? I was marrying the man who loved me for who I was inside. If I’d had a perfect body, I’d never have been convinced that was the case.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 5:36 pm

39 On June 11th, 2008, HeatherRadish said:

I always find it funny that people find it necessary to lose weight for a big event so they look good in pictures, when they don’t look like that the rest of their life.

Ditto!

And I wonder how much of the stereotypical male grouching about “she let herself go after the wedding” (I know not all men do it, but the ones I work with sure do!) stems from women dieting down to unnatural weights before the wedding and pictures, then bouncing back up to a normal weight when the “need” to diet is gone.

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

40 On June 11th, 2008, Charlynn said:

You’re right, Rachel – dieting is dangerous ground for those that have had eating disorders. It’s dabbling too much into the obsessive mindset. I’m glad you didn’t talk yourself into postponing the wedding because you looked beautiful and stunning (and still do). What I see in that picture is a happy, glowing couple that looks like they’re having the time of their life.

I unintentionally lost a few pounds before my wedding last year. The soon-to-be husband and I retiled our bathroom the month before, which was required plenty of good ol’ fashioned hard work on our part. That and the extra running around for wedding preparations took approximately five pounds off of me, and I didn’t even notice it until everyone else started making comments. It was a much bigger deal to them than it was to me because they (apparently) were trying to lose weight and were jealous that I actually *had* lost weight…..and I (for once) hadn’t intentionally done it! Details are on Disordered Times here: http://www.disorderedtimes.com/archives/41

posted on June 11th, 2008 at 9:38 pm