What's in a few pounds here or there?

There is nothing like a wedding to make you freak out about the way you look, especially if it’s you who is getting married. I’m bad enough at friend’s weddings. It takes a very secure woman to not worry about whether their dress will fit or whether they will look their ‘best’, especially when you have 130 people taking photos of you, not to mention ones you have paid an extortionate amount for.

Women spend tens, hundreds or thousands on their appearance for their wedding day according to Soundvision. Add up everything that makes you look 'pretty' and you have one hell of an eye watering beauty list.

Like Popeye, I take a certain optimistic yet pragmatic approach to my looks: I am what I am and yes, I do (in the main) very much like the way that I look. My body and I have had a checkered relationship. Like sisters who spend most of their time together arguing, we understand each other’s advantages and faults and accept them as part of our daily life.

On some days my thighs and I are not on speaking terms. When I lie on my back with my legs against a wall above me however, I admire them greatly. I am not thin. Neither am I fat. I would describe myself as ‘tall but solid with fat in the right places’. BF would describe me as having body dysmorphia and that I look lovely the way that I am. I don't believe him wholly.

Solid. Makes you think of a cow, doesn’t it. I am definitely solid. M always said I could one day be ‘willowy’ but I’ve never quite managed it. I liked food too much and exercised too little.

Thanks to an enjoyable, if unsuccessful, career in filmmaking, I have a lot of wonderful friends who can do wonderful surface things to make you look just wonderful. Mrs MW is doing my adjustments for my dress, P (who I lived with years ago and who used to work for a very famous London Salon) is doing my hair. I’m ok at my own make-up and have the added bonus of getting to keep it all afterwards having done a morning course at the Coquettes on a Groupon offer. So all in all, I am confidant that the facial area and the over body part will look good on the day.

It’s the bit underneath that has me worried right now.

It was only when I went for my dress measurements (bridal shops measure you to decide what dress size they will order about seven years, sorry seven months before your wedding) that the true desperation of the situation sank in.

I knew that I had put weight on since going out with BF. Before we met I was at my slimmest; almost-but-not-quite willowy. Then I started eating and keeping up with a man and it all went south. Before I knew it I had happy fat, definite love handles and was kicking myself a bit. And as anyone who has put on weight will know, as you get heavier the urge to exercise lessens. A true paradox.

So I am standing in the charming dressing room at the lovely Ellie Sanderson where I bought my dress, in my underwear thinking, ‘my god, I’m sure I got RID of that a year or so ago but apparently it’s back. And it’s worse’. Accacia has tied a ribbon around my waist as a reference point (or what there is of it – it sort of is merging with my hips and chest) and is now measuring me gently with small, cold hands and shouting out awfully high numbers to her assistant. My friend N (Girl friend of the Best Man) has come with me for moral support and can hear every word. I’m feeling vaguely embarrassed. I’m also quite mottled as it’s January and cold outside.

After I put my clothes out and emerge feeling like I did when I picked up my first round of A-Level module results ( I got a C and an E), it turns out, I am a couture 18. I feel like I got an F. F for Feminism just Died a bit inside me that I even care. Turns out I am not so happy with my body after all. You can parrot on all you want about wedding dresses being ‘ridiculous’ sizes, but this (and the sight of myself in my under roo’s in that unflatteringly massive mirror) has done something to me. Something has shifted in that dressing room. And I don’t mean my side fat.

We meet the boys for a drink and I am despondent as I sip my wine. Not as much as poor N who has to listen to me whitter on about how fat I am for about six streets. The pork scratchings turned to ashes in my mouth that night.

But I am never low for long. Accacia has said that we can either get me the dress that will fit my waist NOW but will be massive in the bust or I can aim to loose enough weight to go one size lower. That means loosing 3 inches around my waist. That is actually quite a lot of inches – a mountain to climb at that stage but you think that six months is ages. Turns out it isn’t.

I ring Mrs MW to ask her professional dress making advice – go with the one that fits now or one which is a size smaller? Professionally, her advice is, ‘Sod it, go for the small one and eat less.’ So I do. This is apparently against all other professional wedding advice (see this article from Bridal Guide) but life is just not worth living if you don’t take a few risks. This is what I was telling myself when I ordered it.

So here I am several months later, one gym membership in my wallet and with my dress fitting next Saturday morning. The dress that I am hoping will do up, let alone fit.

I can’t say that I am skinny; I am not. I can’t say that the weight has ‘fallen off’ because it hasn't. I have however been slowly toning up and loosing weight. I have also lost 2.5 inches from around my waist and am ½ an inch away from that 31 inch waist band.

Looking good is a pressure but honestly, I have come to the conclusion that you should only do any of this rubbish if you want to. While I may have decided to spent £150 on some random wrap thing which I have always secretly wanted to do an am using this as an excuse (Contour Wrap – I am very excited!), it doesn't mean that you have to. Unless you want to. If you don’t want to have a professional manicure, then don’t have one! If your dress fits when you try it on, don’t have it altered. What is the point in spending £400 on a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes in white that you will never wear again (thanks Frugality - top tip!)?  

Finally, here are my top ten, 100% biased, unprofessional top tips to future brides, bridesmaids, grooms or just people who would like to loose some weight and get fit without going mad or over doing it in the process:

   1)  Gyms are really expensive! My god they are so fricking expensive. In my local area, I have the choice between the County Council Gyms, LA Fitness, David Lloyd. Shop around. We wound up choosing DW because they had the combo of a pool, gym and classes, were around the corner and frankly, were the cheapest. At £39 a month for a 6 month contract, they are a bargain compared to other gyms pricing up at £60-80 a month on a year long contract. It is worth it. I am sure you can do it on your own but there is something about ‘getting my moneys worth’ which keeps me going….

2)  Get a personal Trainer. I mean it. I was never one of those people who thought having a personal trainer was worth the money and then I found Simon. Simon is a genius. He is encouraging, pushes me hard without making me want to cry and is very reasonable price wise – find out some prices and they will surprise you. Plus I get to say ‘Simon says’ at least once a day to BF. Get someone you feel comfortable with and who understands what your goals are. They will even work you out a diet plan. It is 100% worth the effort and cost.

3)  Go to classes. I love classes!! Zumba! Boxercise! Bodycombat! So much better than trudging around the machines in a boring routine, they will work every inch of you and make sure that you are toned all over instead of just doing loads of cardio. You can also work at your own pace and get what you want out of them.

 4) Just stop eating shit. Seriously. No crisps, no cake, no biscuits, no jam. Do you need ice cream on those strawberries? OK, you do, but do you need that much? Had a long day and need a glass of wine? NO! You don’t! Just by cutting out crap you’ll find you seriously help yourself along, especially if you can give up booze. I actually cut out sugar. Seriously. I make my own muesli with oats, dried fruit, some flaked almonds and some truvia now. Didn’t see that one coming….

5)  If the diet sounds too good to be true, it totally is. Do I think raspberry keytones have made ANY difference to my weight? No. Has drinking buckets of green tea made me thinner? No. Not that I don’t take them. BF calls them ‘expensive wee’. What has made me thinner is eating brekkie, not snacking, having salad and chicken for lunch and an uber healthy meal in the evening. It’s depressing. I hate it. But it works. My Fitness Pal is a free app and will track your calories and also your exercise routine. Plus you can make rude comments on all of your friend’s pages. 

6)  Measure inches. Sod the weight. It’s an indication of nowt as BF would say. Keep an idea of it sure, but if you’re doing what I’m doing and aiming for visits to the gym at least 4 times a week, then you are not going to loose much weight. What you are going to do is loose fat and gain muscle. Which is good. Read this article on Muscle Vs Fat. Basically not only does muscle take up less space and look better but it also means you burn more calories just doing nothing by increasing your metabolic efficiency. BONUS! So any girls out there who think weights are for boys, think again!

7) Be realistic. My bingo wings are not going to go, however much Boxercise and Bodycombat I do between now and the wedding. Sad but true. Do I worry? No! I am just going to have to accept that I have slightly plump arms. At least I HAVE arms.

8)  Loose it slow and keep it off. And don’t stress about it. It won’t go any faster for you fretting (sorry to all of my friends who have constant weight updates – FYI, I am fretting a lot). Your future husband doesn’t give a shit if you have lost weight. I almost guarantee he didn’t propose to you just to have you turning into some food crazed dragon woman. He liked you how you were before enough to buy it. Loosing weight is for yourself and yourself alone.

9)   You’re going to look epic no matter what. Really, you are.

10) Don’t believe everything you read. BF is a scientist and I am not. He never accepts things for what they are at face value whereas I do. When I say ‘potatoes are bad for you’ he comes back with this article which actually proves that is tosh. Yes, potatoes are not bad for you! Stop saying they are. Imagine what else you are told is going to help and is actually merely causing you misery! Do some proper research when people tell you to ‘cut’ things out. Mainly it’s about moderation, not prohibition.

 This has been a slight deviation from the subject but needless to say, I am very nervous about fitting in my dress. Please wish me luck for a week’s time when I go to try it on and I will be keeping up the good work by heading to a quick boxercise class tonight before leaving to visit my parents and try to avoid drinking too much wine. Sad times.

I just hope I can keep it up long enough.

Managing Expectations

I work in customer service in a company where people have very high expectations of the experience that they receive. I came there from the Royal Opera House where I worked as an usher and later an usher manager. Unsurprisingly, the House also had very high customer anticipations. I also happen to lecture bored looking students on ‘customer expectation’. It came as no surprise therefore to find the wedding game has as many (or more) problems with managing high expectation as any other business.

You know and I know that this blog is ridiculous for many reasons. The very fact that I am writing articles about one day in my life and whether I will cope with it without turning into some kind of insane killing machine is in itself pretty absurd and not a little insulting to our intelligence. But the more I go on, the more the whole thing fascinates me. I am genuinely enjoying this indulgent journey into the day of possibly the Highest Customer Expectation any person will ever experience, whether they are bride, groom or [insert position near to the bride or groom] other. And I think I may have got to the bottom of why this one day, one in the average human’s 25, 000 days on the planet is such a massively joyful, stressful, ball ache to arrange. It all comes from what we Expect.

Customer Expectation is what the customer thinks should happen and how they think they should be treated when receiving it. Let’s be clear, expect is different to want. Wanting is something you would like, but understand you can’t necessarily have. Expectation is something you form the intention of definitely owning.

‘I want you to have this on my desk by tomorrow’ vs. ‘I expect you to have this on my desk by tomorrow’’.

Which sentence would make you more likely to get that piece of work for your manager done?

Here is an example for you. If I walk into a 5*hotel that I have paid a lot for having made a room reservation a few days prior, I not only want the following things, but I also expect them from the overall experience that I have been sold. I expect that I should be greeted in a clean and calm reception by a professional and well trained person, I expect to be told where my room is, I expect that my room is what I have asked/paid for and I expect that this will be done at the speed I want. I expect a close to perfect experience.

If I walk into a £29 a night motel however, certain elements of my expectation will be very different.

Similarly, if I am getting married I expect the day that I want, or I expect the day I have in my head at least. Every person has a picture of what they want: 

It doesn’t matter what you or I think of any of these pictures. If these are what you expect from a wedding, I cannot change that. Your expectations are yours and yours alone. You might not even know them yet until someone shows you a wedding cake and you think, ‘I really can’t see the point of a wedding cake, do we actually need one?’

The difficulty with wedding expectation is, I think, simply down to the huge amount of factors external to an individual’s expectations.  I might not be able to afford what I ‘expect’ to have, it might not be what my partner expects to have, if I’m not paying it might not be what my or my partner’s parents expect us to have and it certainly won’t be what everyone else expects to have at their own wedding or the wedding which they believe is how things should be/look/be done. When we plan a wedding we are always compromising on our expectations or having them challenged, be they for financial, personal or practical reasons.  And we are constantly managing expectations, whether they are our own or those of other people.

How we deal with these expectations is another matter. If I am dealing with a customer whose expectations of my business are higher than the service I can offer (e.g. they are going to complain whatever I do) then I would tell my students to mind the following points:

•       Effective Listening

•       Diffuse negative emotions

•       Use assertiveness

•       Negotiate

I would advise my students to keep your voice low, make eye contact, and explain calmly but firmly why you haven’t been able to provide them with 400 thread count Egyptian cotton when they paid £29 for the room, then try to work out where that expectation has come from. I am not saying that this will solve the problem (the human mind is a complex organ), but you will at least have given yourself some insight into why this person has built up the expectations they are now expressing.

Everyone has an expectation of what they think a ‘good wedding’ entails. For me it is mainly about a free bar. Really; it’s a free bar which floats my boat. Don’t judge. For other people it’s the food. Or they might have a bug bear about strapless dresses in a church or the order of service being a bit shoddy or the fact that the organist can’t play three notes together (actually, I’ll own up to that one too). Some people expect to only have close family to the ceremony while others expect to be at the ceremony as that’s the bit they enjoy the most (still on the free bar here). And I can guarantee those expectations are raised when it comes to anyone you are speaking to when you tell them about your wedding:

“But you HAVE to have….”

“ You can’t get married without a…”

“ You’ll regret it if you don’t have….”

When my colleague and close friend told me about her wedding and how she didn’t want a first dance I actually responded with, “But you HAVE to have a first dance!!”  We’re good enough friends that she gave me the eye and I retracted it quickly feeling pretty ashamed, especially when I found out she’d had the same response from about three other people. It’s not helpful, it isn’t constructive and actually, it’s a bit insulting. Why should she have a bloody first dance if she doesn’t want or expect one but everyone around her does?

And this is a minor expectation. What about the big ones? 

I know for a fact that M’s expectations were that I’d have a big wedding. Imagine how her expectations would have been challenged by my going to Vegas to be married by Elvis instead of the local vicar? I think she would have supported me if it was what I had always wanted, even if it didn’t match up to her expectations, but it would have definitely been a struggle and a disappointment.

It would not just have run contrary to M’s expectations. Friends who have known me for all of my life and who are highly traditional would have definitely made their opinions on this clear (as only these kinds of friends can) and I am sure that the expression, “But you have to’ or ‘You can’t do XYZ’ would have been forcibly drummed into me whenever I visited my parents. It wears you down and the temptation is to give in because it's easier. Don't start me on Shoes vs. Sandals....

Everyone has an opinion. Once you accept this is how it is and that people will always have different expectations to your own, it’s how you deal with these expectation conflicts that count. My advice is to make a game plan between you and your fiancé about what you both expect from your wedding day before you tell anyone and then make it clear what you’re having with no compromise from the start as my colleague has. But if you aren’t that organised like BF and I you have two choices:

1)

  

   2) Effective Listening, diffuse negative emotions, use assertiveness and if you feel you have to, NEGOTIATE!

I am going to leave you with my favourite expectation concerning weddings.

I asked my niece of five to draw me a wedding dress. I was expecting something big, something white and something magnificent (or  something  like a dress that Elsa from Frozen would wear). The results were surprising. 

Goes to show.

Hen and Stag Do's

I’m sitting here on the sofa opposite BF who is currently organising a Stag Do. Not for himself. His good friends H & H are getting married this June and he is Best Man for H.

Currently we are discussing things I would never usually have expected to be discussing with BF. Things like colours of the stag t-shirts. Fonts. What should his nickname be (Dr Dick – did you really have to ask?!). The size of the men who are going – wahaaay! You get the idea.

H, the groom BF is BM-ing for, is having what sounds like an epic, Stag-Man fest. They are going to Prague as a group. I mocked it at first and now actually I’m a bit (much) jealous. It’s starting to sound AWESOME! They have t-shirts with nicknames on them. They are being met at the airport and taken around Prague with either a man who looks like this

or a woman who looks like this

who will take them to all the best bars and organise their time away. It’s not even that expensive. They get to fire guns. GUNS. I’m anti guns and I am still jealous.

And it’s Prague. Even if I’m drunk the whole time (in all fairness, they spend most of every episode of Mad Men drunk) and miss its majestic beauty and splendour, I would love to go. So yes, I am ragingly jealous. Because there is something I genuinely think is liberating about a group of people heading out on the town dressed in some horrific get up celebrating with their friends until they all wake up in the same chip shop at 3am with a Donar Kebab stuck to their face.

BF is actually doing a much quieter affair for his own Stag Do and is heading to his home city to follow the ale trail and go Clay Pigeon shooting. His dad, my dad and all of our brothers will be there so I’m not expecting it will be too raucous. At least, I suspect not. You never know how it will turn out when you get enough testosterone, real ale and men in a small pub space. But I suspect it will be a thoroughly nice, drunk time had by all with few in the way of strippers, hookers and burying them in the desert after a coke fuelled party. Who knows.

I have always been aware of the contentious nature of Stag and Hen Do’s. There are a number of reasons why people don’t like them, which I shall attempt to express:

   1)They celebrate the rowdy ‘lad culture’ 

    which is so abhorrent to many who have to share their city centre with a bunch of loutish members of either sex with their skirt up their arse, their shirt off (in either sex let’s face it) or urinating in the street. But then, that’s a normal Saturday night to a lot of folks. So are Hen Do’s or Stag Do’s really increasing the after effects of this display of primal mating rituals and drinking escapism? Not in my books. They just    wear more L plates and specially printed t-shirts. 

2) The Price. 

   The average Hen Do or 

    Stag Do used to take place at your local boozer the night before the wedding. This was back int’ good old days when you didn’t live with your spouse. Now they range from £50 for activities and 

     a picnic to some cracking holidays in the UK, Spain or Prague for £200+ (see the StagdoCompany for all of the 

     Boobs and Guns you could ever hope 

     to handle – ha ha – or Hen Heaven for some Shots and Giggles) and even some luxury sites which cater for the more discerning (ahem) Hen or Stag here. But it’s a lot more than a night at the pub would cost, even in London, and also involves a lot more organising which leads me to…. 

 3) They are a logistical nightmare to organise for the lucky Best Man or Bridesmaid. Frankly, if a company wants proven experience in Project Management, they should include Hen Do organisational skills. My Cousin E who is organising my own Hen Do, despite being a tame and quiet affair in comparison with the mega events she has organised in the past, or the massive group BF is shipping to Prague should have some kind of NVQ qualification. I tip my hat to them.

  4) They have been tainted by the TOWIE tar brush. 

     Ok, awful looking Hen Do’s and Stags have been around since Benedorm was first a resort, but everyone now tries to outclass themselves with ‘who can do the least tacky/most tacky hen do’ from this to this. Seriously, apparently now they are genuinely considered to be tainting Blackpool. Tainting Blackpool?! At least they are USING Blackpool, which is more that the Great British Public did in the 1980’s and 1990’s. See here for more on that. 

I love a good hen do. I have had some wonderful nights. Mrs B’s Hen do which started in a classy Greenwich cinema and continued on to where I have photos of myself and my university friends in the City franchise of Reflex wearing leg warmers on our arms, golden fake boobs, visors and giant sunglasses. My Cousin R’s Hen do in Monmouth where we hired a medieval house, played ‘pin the codpiece on the King’ and salsa’d until late in Bristol. Mrs O’s which was in Spain – yes Spain, where her folks had a flat, we got a mini holiday and tans for the wedding.

Then there are the bad ones where I knew no-one and felt awkward. I have had a fair few of them.

Hen Do awkwardness is the worst. Give me a like if you’ve ever felt that gut wrenching, bone crunching awkward moment when you realise that you know no-one on the night out, you have nothing in common with anyone, you try and try and just can’t get drunk enough and you’ve bankrupted yourself to attend. Plus, you weren’t told you had to bring a costume and you’re the only one in a cocktail dress while everyone else is a sexy cowboy. Painful.

Bachelor Parties to Americans (Bachelorette Parties to the Ladies), Junggesellenabschied to the Germans, maanhaar partytjie in South Africa and enterrement de vie de garcon to the French, or literally the death of the bachelor. Lovely. Stag Do however in the UK, please. 

The Romans were pipped to the ‘weird wedding tradition invention’ in this instance by the Spartians who apparently invented the Stag Do in the 5^th Century BC as a way of celebrating a man’s last night single. Which bearing in mind Sparta was a male dominated country like the rest of Ancient Greece sounds suspiciously like an excuse to party their arses off. By 1896 one Herbery Barnum Seeley’s stag do was broken up by police for allegedly displaying a nude belly dancer. Jimmy Stewart had midgets jump out of a serving dish. Top that y’all. 

Did they traditionally wear stag horns? 

Apparently fake stag horns are now popular to wear on a stag do. Why? As far as I can see, while the Horned Man remained an integral part of British Folk Law as a symbol of fertility, he has nothing to do with a man’s last night as an unmarried Buck – oh wait, there we go. Horns in mythology in the British Isles also represent Kingship and I suppose the man is ‘King of his Friends’ for the day.

Then in all fairness, girls wanted in on it and the Hen Do was born. Hen Do’s really didn’t exist until the 1940’s (Eleanor Roosevelt had one – she was already married but she still called it a ‘Hen Party’ so we’ll count it). Katie Price got Botox on her Hen Do. Yes really. See here. Kate Middleon had a quiet night in. Different strokes for different folks.

There is also a seedy side to the whole affair I know. I am not trying to say that it’s all innocence and laughter.

I am not a fan of intimidating Stag or Hen Do’s – you know, the ones who get into a club or bar en masses and act like they’re Pitbull/Jennifer Lopez/both Pitbull AND Jennifer Lopez but tackier. I hate the idea that my BF will even step foot in a strip club and am vehemently anti sex industry when it comes to Stag or Hen Do’s, the sex industry in general in fact. I am intelligent and worldly enough to understand why I don’t want my boy stepping foot into places where enforced working conditions tantamount to female slavery and the violence which many of these women are involved with (endemic to an industry that many have not chosen to follow) is rife. 

You only have to look at the Stag Do activity names to see how hyper-sexualised and derogatory towards women a lot of these holidays are (not to mention the faintly nauseating pictures of women sucking guns/wearing very little – no boys, it’s not empowering, it’s called ‘sexual objectification’ – watch the Ted Talk here) with names like ‘Big Guns and Strippers’.

The Hen side of Last Night of Freedom.com is like stepping onto a different planet. It’s pink. Look at the coy girls giggling at the man with most of his modesty covered. They are wearing face masks. FACE MASKS. There is a poledancing trip. But you actually get to Pole Dance instead of watching someone else pole dance. Mud wrestling. Where you get to mud wrestle your friends. In Private. There is one picture of a semi-naked man. Evidently this website knows what women want. Or thinks it does.

You can buy t-shirts with the Stag or Hen’s name on them. You can buy Willy Head boppers. Willy straws. In fact, anything in a willy shape. Tutus. Hire the  Butlers in the Buff to come and wait at your table. Have some Pole Dancing Lessons. For J’s wedding, C and I organised a Burlesque Lesson for all followed by a night out in Leeds. In corsets and pants. Epic. You can go skiing, go to Antarctica, go skydiving, go to Las Vegas or Skeg Vegas. You can do anything you want so long as you have the money to do it and the friends who want to go with you.

So yes, you can look at a Stag Do or a Hen Do as a 'waste of money' over 'something trivial' which is, if I’m honest, how I tended towards looking at them a few years ago when I was working a low paid job with limited holiday. After all, you’re about to pay for a hotel at the wedding location, buy an outfit/hat, travel and get a gift to see your friend get married. To pay £400 on top for a Hen do (which is ball park when you add up accommodation/travel/activities) seems a bit much.

But if you really want to go, you’ll find the money and the time. Because basically a Hen Do (or a Stag Do) is an excuse to get together, let off steam and have some fun.  It’s mainly innocent. Yes, some taxis get hurt and Blackpool gets a bit less family orientated every time a group gets dressed up as their favourite super heroes or duct tape their mate naked to a street lamp.  I am vehemently against anyobjectification of images of men or women and I feel sick that anyone thinks visiting strip clubs is ‘normal’ or a ‘right of passage’ but heck, they sell boppers with penises on them. They are in the main, bloody good fun and well intentioned.

Cousin E, any chance we can change the Hen Do to Blackpool?