I know, I know – it’s hardly an original blog post is it. But as a bride to be with only two weeks to go, I feel that I should impart my wisdom (?) to fellow women embarking on their bridal madness.
1 Misplaced stress
Everyone tells you that you’ll become a bridezilla – that you’ll shout at everyone in your wedding party for no reason and insist they wear exactly the underwear/shoes/nail varnish that you’ve chosen. What no-one tells you is that you might, in fact, be quite organised and remain quite calm. “Great” (you think to yourself) “that’ll be lovely in the run-up to my wedding”! It would be, if the human brain wasn’t so damn pesky.
Not content with this ocean of calm before your nuptials, your brain will instead make you freak out over the most mundane of non-wedding related tasks. Mine happened over my mum’s birthday. I was on the phone to my sister, unable to put together a coherent sentence about what to buy our mother, and close to tears. I just didn’t know what to buy her, and apparently that was cause for crying. Make sure you’ve got a good balance of tough-love-dispensing, hug-sharing bridesmaids around you, that’s all I’m saying.
2 Weight shmeight
We’ve all heard the urban myth about diet-crazy brides, and in the beginning, that’s true. I was going for daily runs, avoiding carbs and having regular ‘dry weeks’ throughout our preparation. But about a month ago, I just stopped caring. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not eating two pizzas a night followed by an ice cream chaser. But I’m also not being particularly health conscious.
Maybe it’s because my dress alterations are final and I know it fits. Maybe it’s because I’m burning off ten gazillion calories a day in nervous energy. Maybe it’s the worst decision of my life and my dress won’t do up in 2 weeks’ time.
Either way, I just don’t have the energy or motivation to worry about my weight as well as everything else. A wedding dress (while beautiful) is still just a dress. If all of your other dresses, trousers, tops and jackets fit without busting open à la Hulk; your wedding dress will be fine too.
3 Your liver does not develop superhuman powers
Everyone wants a piece of you in the run-up to your wedding and with wine tastings, hen dos, work drinks, family gatherings, general birthdays and nights out – you’ll find yourself consuming a lot of alcohol. Sounds fun, right?
True, until you look at yourself in the mirror one day and realise that the ‘one or two’ you’ve limited yourself to in an effort to minimise your intake is not as goody-two-shoes when multiplied by the 8 events you’ve been to. Your skin will be grey, your eyes dull. You’ll have breakouts and feel constantly lethargic and snappy. No amount of water is enough to quench your thirst.
Enjoy the pre-wedding buzz and accept the bubbly you’ll undoubtedly be bought by loved ones. But say no when you can and take some time at home for hot baths and early nights. You’ll thank me.
4 You’ll cry at the news
Seriously, I’m a pretty emotional person anyway but in the last few weeks it’s been magnified – think Bridget Jones at her worst. At the end of my hen do I was tearing up saying goodbye to my best friend at London Victoria. She’s a bridesmaid, she lives half an hour away, and we talk most days. It was pathetic.
My emotional-pansy turning point was after the last wedding before ours. My lovely cousin got married four weeks before us, and the day after his ceremony I expected to wake up hyperactive and full of the joys of bridedom. Sadly, I instead woke up close to tears about everything lovely and beautiful in the world and unable to hold a conversation about the wedding without getting uncomfortably teary. I was just so overwhelmingly happy about life. No cold feet for me, just a wet face.
5 Don’t be proud
My final and most important piece of advice is the most important. I know how much you want to keep your wedding a surprise for your guests. I know how much you and your hubby-to-be want to do everything yourself because it’s a wonderful experience as a couple. That’s all well and good. But when things get too much (and it will be when rather than if) and you just can’t look at another favour without using it to slowly paper-cut yourself to death; Ask. For. Help.
You didn’t choose bridesmaids and ushers just to look pretty and plan hen and stag dos (though if they’re anything like ours they’ll be pretty awesome) – you chose them to support you as a couple in the run-up to the biggest day of your life.
Whether it’s help with actual wedding stuff, or help with actual life (which annoyingly doesn’t come to a halt in the weeks preceding your big day), they’re ready and waiting to help you. Back to my mid-Clintons breakdown, I asked one of my bridesmaids (who’s also my sister-in-law) to sort out my mum’s present and tell me what I owe. Job done, weird little meltdown averted. She also told me to go home, eat chocolate peanuts and chill out. Which is what I plan to do.
Family, feminism and frustrations 