I’M GLAD I NEVER WENT ON A PREWEDDING DIET
proposed and 37 when we tied the knot and I had assumed that the insidious anxiety about every inch of excess flesh had been left behind in my miniskirt-wearing, Alexa Chung-adulating twenties. I was wrong.
Most of the comments I got during my engagement were well-intentioned and, interestingly, nearly all of them came from women. There was the former colleague who changed our lunch booking from an Italian restaurant to a Vietnamese one in case I wasn’t eating carbs, the relative who said my pre-wedding bout of Covid was the perfect diet, and the PR who explained why she’d sent flowers rather than cupcakes as a thank you. I love a bowl of pho and a bunch of peonies as much as the next Millennial – but what I resented was the suggestion that I should be on a diet when I was happy with my already quite thin body.
The pressure we feel to look like a Disney princess rarely comes from the people we’re marrying – or, at least, it shouldn’t do if we want the ‘happily ever after’. Men have no idea about the pressure we’re under to look perfect: my husband spent the weeks before our wedding eating pasta and curries – and nobody asked him about fitting into his morning suit.
So where does this pre-wedding appearance obsession come from? ‘The patriarchy influences all areas of our lives,’ says dietician and author Dalia Kinsey. ‘We imagine a wedding to be strictly a celebration of love, but it is just as influenced by sexism as any other tradition. Men are understood to be more than their bodies; women are socialised to derive a great deal of their sense of worth from adhering to the beauty standards of the day.’
This is problematic for so many reasons – not least because the pandemic and shifting social norms mean that many women now delay getting married until after they’ve had children. ‘I put on a stone after having my daughter last year. My fiancé and I always wanted to get married in this beautiful house in Cornwall, but I can’t bear to set a date until I’ve shifted some of this baby weight,’ says Laura, 37. ‘The sad part is that it’s causing a bit of a rift between us because he’s really excited to formalise our commitment to each other and I feel too ashamed to tell him I’m dragging my heels because I feel too fat for a white dress.’
It is even more difficult for the women who have recovered from eating disorders. Rosa, 32, is one of them. As a teenager she developed bulimia and, after years of work, she had recovered by her mid-twenties, but found planning her wedding triggering. ‘All my friends and family were really sensitive,’ she explains, ‘but moments like when my wedding dress designer said she’d cut the corset tight because I’d inevitably lose weight made me feel really anxious – like my body was all wrong for what was supposed to be this fairy-tale time.’
For any brides-to-be struggling with this, Dalia suggests setting and reinforcing firm boundaries. ‘Prioritise your health over the feelings of any guests who may get sensitive when you explain that their comments are harmful,’ she says. ‘Discuss your concerns with your partner so that you can present a united front, shutting down problematic statements in real time.’
In the end, I absolutely loved my wedding day, which passed in a happy, sunny blur. Despite my irritation with the comments in the run-up to it, I did make an effort with my appearance – and I don’t see any contradiction there. And I ate particularly healthily the week before the wedding – nerves also made me lose my appetite – but I’m glad that I never went on a diet. Crucially, my wedding dress looked almost as good when I first zipped it up, pale and tired after a very indulgent Christmas, as it did on the happy day itself.