I love the phrase sweating for the wedding. Add a little country twang and it’s even better: sweatin’ fer the weddin’! One time, my fiancé called me “folksy” and I cried.
Make no mistake: I, myself, am not sweatin’ fer the weddin’. I’m sweating because I’m trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon so that I can taste the foreign nectars of achievement, on behalf of folksy girls everywhere. (And because, most importantly, running is my lifeblood.)
But I still love the phrase. It makes me think of poofy-haired ‘80s women in spandex, jumping around to Richard Simmons videos, pausing the TV with a clunky remote to answer a landline and tell Tiffany, I’m really trying to lose five pounds by the bridal shower. There’s a resolve in her voice that we recognize now as toxic, self-punishing. I think it was kind of a slay.
Speaking of toxic, here’s what I ate yesterday:
Breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes with butter and maple syrup
Lunch: two frozen Trader Joe’s burritos
Snack: like, three cucumber spears dipped in hummus (something green!)
Dinner: rigatoni and meatballs in a white wine cream sauce
Other Snack: Trader Joe’s vegan cookies & cream bon bons, glass of red wine
… would you believe I’m getting married on Friday?
My wedding is in less than 48 hours, and I feel fat. I feel ugly. I have PMDD and I’m in my luteal phase. There is a zit between my eyebrows. Tell me there’s a benevolent God and I’ll tell you to shut the fuck up and Venmo me for my spray tan. I’m losing my mind thinking about the overpriced photos, how my body will tell on itself: hormonal birth control, so many bagels. If bride is deity, I am goddess of bagels. I could see my mom asking me how much I weigh.
There’s a certain freedom in admitting you won’t look your best on your wedding day. Not that I’ve made peace with it or anything; I have every beauty appointment under the sun this week to pick up nature’s slack. But in admitting I feel like a troll right now, I can laugh at myself, and what’s more freeing than that? I feel beautiful when I’m laughing and I realize I cannot exist another second defining “my best” in collarbones and jawlines. There are people to hug. There is cake to eat.
In the season one finale of Twin Peaks, when Donna and James are searching Dr. Jacoby’s office for evidence of Laura’s death, they find a collection of cocktail umbrellas marked with important events. The one they pulled was dated July 8th, my birthday. Just days before watching that episode, I was walking past a restaurant in my neighborhood when one brunching girl said to another, “yeah, it was July 8th” (context unknown).
I don’t know what it means to confront your birthday in the wild twice in one week. But being that it happened so close to my wedding—which, have I mentioned, is Friday?—I assume the cosmic implication is one of rebirth.
Spiritual arrogance is repugnant but I do think, in love, I kinda have the metaphysical part down. Our shared future comes to me in orbs of white light. So if rebirth is afoot, let it be earthly. Let it be bodily. Let me be reborn as a person who can get through their 15-minute courthouse ceremony without asking the photographers, “yeaaaaaah, can I see that one?? Can you try this angle??? A little lower, yeah, can you make me look taller than 5’4? Yeah? Perfect.”
If you enjoy my writing, perhaps you’ll consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Consider it a wedding gift. Consider it buying me the burger, fries, and beer I’m scheming on this weekend—my first as a WIFE. Thanks for reading… and for generally indulging my bridal panic.
Dia, I shit you not, you're one of my favorite writers up on the Substacks right now. Your writing is like pure candy to me. Super happy to have discovered your work. Just wanted to say that.
And a big congrats on the wedding!!
I love this so much, so candid and yet profound!! I also did not feel like I looked my best on my wedding day and it was just fine. Subscribing to read more body checks (and feeling a little inspired to start writing some of my own).