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Weddingbee Blog
So for my birthday this year, Bossyboots gave me an item I’ve been wanting for several years… a Clarisonic!
If you’re new to the Clarisonic game, this thingamabob is a turbo cleaner for your face. I realize this may seem like a strange gift, but I’ve been wanting one of these babies for a few years, but I could never bring myself to buy it. It seemed like such a luxury.
That being said, I am 33. Not elderly by any means, but my skin has definitely aged since college, when I was made of teflon. I have wrinkles, lines, reptilian scales—you know, all the normal markers for aging. 
Hive, I have to tell you that I have never for a minute cared about my nails. Sure, I’ve gotten some manicures in my life for special events! But on a daily basis, my nails are not treated with respect. If I’m being 100% honest, I’m a nail picker. I say this because I don’t really bite my nails (although I will if they are breaking). Instead I pick at the cuticles (I know, gross). It’s a bad habit that got started during stressful schooling.
So I don’t know what has happened to me lately, but I have become completely and utterly obsessed with my nails! Like, I have literally acquired about seven new nail polish colors in the past two months. And not only have I been playing with color, but I’ve been playing with techniques as well!
Thanks to my obsession with Pinterest, I have discovered crazy techniques to make your nails over-the-top ridiculous, like water marbling (as you can see modeled on my hands above).
Currently, my favorite color has become Mink Muffs by Essie (shout out to Miss Mink!). It’s the perfect combination of darkness for the winter with a hint of taupy lightness.
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Wedding countdown time has clearly begun, thus prompting all sorts of beauty preparations.
Grow hair longer: I’m trying (whyy won’t it grow faster?!).
Whiten teeth: eventually.
Work out, get fit, lose arm fat: ehhh we’ll see.
Get clear skin: totally very much almost there!
See, when I was a teen, I was blessed with very good skin. I was (am) pale as heck and couldn’t (still can’t) get a tan to save my life, but my skin was clear 99% of the time. Which, naturally, I took for granted at my young age. I never wore a ton of makeup because I just didn’t have to. And then I reached my 20s and went on birth control. Cue breakouts. Constant, terrible breakouts for the past 4 years or so.
No matter what I’ve tried—different birth control, an array of face cleansing products, cutting back on alcohol (hey, I love my wine)—nothing helped. My skin would get slightly better for a few days each month (take a guess when), but it’s been consistently…not nice. While I hate it in general, I specifically hate it because of the upcoming wedding. Makeup can only do so much. HD cameras do more.
Foxy has mentioned Proactive a couple times—he used to use it when he was in college, but said that after some time it stopped working for him, which made me nervous. Plus, I hate their commercials, with their gorgeous celebrities with “skin problems.” Maybe they really do (did) have skin problems, but they also have makeup artists and Photoshop and airbrushing at their disposal. Either way, I found myself irrationally skeptical. Intrigued, but still skeptical.
So when I found myself at Sephora a few weeks before Christmas.
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During all four years of high school, I was lucky enough to be part of the competition dance team. I loved almost everything about it. I got to spend my afternoon exercising and training with a fantastic group of girls; I was part of an elite team, and I had special uniforms and T-shirts to prove it.
Along with pirouettes and fun costumes came makeup. Lots and LOTS of stage makeup. Makeup that would make our eyes visible from the football field. If I hated anything about being on dance team it was caking that makeup on before any performance. It. Just. Sucked.
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I’ve always been a big fan of nail polishes. I think I began to pay even more attention to my hands and nails after becoming engaged because of all of the grabbing at and requests to see my hand. Engagement rings are shiny, pretty, and kind of a big deal, but I was still surprised by it all.
As we’re approaching our wedding date, I thought I could iron out some of the smaller details like nail polish while avoiding larger and more important things, of course. Standing in the nail care aisle, even at a local chain store, can be a little overwhelming. Looking for a nice pale color? No problem! They only have more options than you knew of colors existed. Nothing was really speaking to me until my eye caught a lonely little bottle of an OPI lacquer called Sweetheart. If it was such a hot item that there was only one left, it was worth giving a shot, right?
I’m happy I did, too! It’s the perfect creamy color I’d dreamed up for myself!
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…and I don’t mean dinner reservations. I’ve already talked a little about my insecurities about my looks. Let’s be real here, people. I’m a female living in America, which is to say, I have body issues. I can’t go a day without being subliminally reminded that my worth lies in my looks, and I also can’t go a day without looking in a mirror and seeing, well, not a supermodel.
The fact that I look young is also a constant source of embarrassment for me. Sure, I joke about it all the time. I roll my eyes and shake my head in irritation when someone tells me I look like a 12-year-old, but to be completely honest, it’s humiliating. I don’t care if you think it’s a compliment because it means I’ll look young when I’m 50. It’s hard enough trying to navigate post-college adulthood and juggling new responsibilities with pressure to still act young and carefree. I don’t know how to act around adults because I’m not quite sure if I’m one of them or not. It certainly doesn’t help that I look like I belong in junior high. And it certainly doesn’t help my self-confidence to be constantly reminded of my childish looks by every bouncer, hairdresser, and barista I meet. Disclaimer: I’m not fishing for compliments!
Image via sodahead.com
If only I could look like this woman on my wedding day. Oh wait, foiled by Toddlers and Tiaras yet again.
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
In a previous post, I talked about my efforts to become a healthy, happy, and confident bride (and person) before I walk down the aisle in January. Now I want to talk more specifically about what had helped me lose those 90 pounds and what has been working again this time around. There’s nothing particularly special or unique about me physiologically; if I can do this, so can anyone. So can you.
As everyone knows, there are two major components to weight loss: diet and exercise. You’ve probably heard the saying that weight loss is 90% diet and 10% exercise, right? Well, for me, starting a consistent exercise routine was absolutely, without a doubt, the most important part. Like many women, I am a stress-eater. I tend to eat when I am worried, when I am anxious, when I am nervous. I quickly discovered, though, that a good workout does an even better job of taking away my stress. I could work through my frustrations at my job over a spin class, not with a dozen chocolate chip cookies. I could clear my mind after a disagreement with a friend by running it out on the treadmill, not by smothering it with mac and cheese. With each substitution, I felt better—and grew lighter.
Going to the gym also made me feel like a badass in a Nike ad. That’s right: I just did push-ups! And some free weights! Now I am going to do a couple of miles on the treadmill—faster than I did last week! Faster than you! Regardless of how fast I was actually running or how much weight I was actually lifting or how many push-ups I was actually doing, I felt powerful and strong. The last thing that I wanted to do was feel weighed down by greasy or calorically dense food.
My favorite Nike ad and source of fitness inspiration / Image via Nike Blog
OK, hive, it’s time to get real. I don’t often write serious things because they’re boring, but I figured I should get this off my chest: being a bride makes me feel damn ugly. (If you’re tired of hearing girls complain about their looks, you should probably click away now.)
Screenshot from Mean Girls / Image via cinema-24.blogspot.com
Hot chicks complaining about their looks is the worst thing ever.
Every wedding plan I make somehow reminds me of my looks. There are the obvious things, like dress shopping, looking for photographers (and thus thinking about how I’ll actually look in the photos), and booking a makeup pro. But other things are worrying me too. Like am I gonna look fat in our wedding video when I’m doing my sweaty rendition of the “Cha Cha Slide“? Will I have a hunchback while we say our vows and everyone’s looking at me from the side? Is the next vendor I meet with going to think I look like I belong in the eighth grade instead of in a wedding dress? Are my teeth too yellow? Is my skin too pale? Are my arms too fat? Are my feet too big? Are my nails too small? (Answer: yes. I have perfectly circular nails. It’s strange, and every time I’ve ever gotten a manicure, the manicurist has taken one look at my nails and literally said, “Oh my!”)
Hive, I am here with a true success story. A testimonial, if you will.
Way back in August, which is marked in my mind by the number of months away from our wedding (just under six months), I read a blog post. This blog post changed my world. I’m not exaggerating. Things changed after that moment.
Mrs. Macarons, then Miss Macarons, wrote a post about nails. She talked about having trouble growing her nails. I could relate to that post. It spoke to me.
As a nervous nail biter, a pianist, and a scientist, my nails had always been short thanks to years of lab work, recitals, and nerve-inducing situations (med school interviews anyone?). I figured they would always be that way since fake acrylics weren’t for me. But when I read her post, I knew there could be more for me.
I purchased the product from the website she mentioned the very next day. It was cheaper online that it is in CVS. I started using it as a base coat and top coat over my nail polish. Over the last few months, my approach has evolved, and I’m so pleased with the results, I simply have to share.
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| Personal photo: These were my nails in August. Tiny tiny nail beds with short short nails. No wedding bueno. |
My wedding dress was discontinued shortly before I started my wedding-dress search. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a sample of this lovely gown at a bridal salon in Los Angeles. Furthermore, because the dress could no longer be ordered, the salon was selling the dress at a deep discount: 67% off. The only catch to this sweet price? I had to accept that particular dress on that particular day. I couldn’t get the dress in a different color. I couldn’t get it with a different hem length. And, most importantly, I couldn’t get it in a different size. It was going to be size 10 or bust (out of the seams).
The dress fit perfectly. Yet realizing this gave me serious pause: a size 10 is both a smaller size and a bigger size than I ever imagined being on my wedding day. Say what? Let me explain.
Growing up, I struggled with my weight. By struggled with my weight, I really mean that I struggled with being overweight. I was fairly active in sports, but I was always the heaviest one on the softball or swim team. I grew to be a junior size 9 before I even graduated into junior high. I bounced between a 10 and a 14 in high school. In college, I maintained a size 14–16. I lacked confidence, so I hid my body behind oversized cardigans and baggy sweatshirts. I also wore a lot of black, clinging to the idea that it was “slimming.” At my highest, I probably weighed 230 pounds.
Trying to blend into the background
So if anyone had told a younger version of me that someday I would walk down the aisle in a size 10 wedding gown, strapless no less, I would have been shocked.
When it comes to the big day we ALL obsess over something related to our appearance. I have never heard of a bride who was like “um, I’ll wear my burlap sack and stick a ribbon around my bird’s nest unwashed fro.” Even the brides on My Big Redneck Wedding (oh where has that show gone?) care about their appearance—even if they were getting married over a swamp. *Nothing against real life self-proclaimed rednecks out there. That show was just freakin-a nuts!
My usual concerns for any event that involves looking nice includes worrying about breakouts, my big hair, flare ups of these annoying red bumps I get on my arms, and underarm boob. You know, that fun piece of blubber in the armpit area that looks like a baby boob when squashed at just the right angle.
Hmmm, I sound real attractive right now. I swear I’m not a troll living under a bridge on the regular, but when it comes to nice events I pay more attention to these things. And as a bride it’s on my mind, of course. Definitely a lot more. I think many of us can agree that we over analyze how we will look on our wedding day, and lately I’ve been thinking: WHY? I mean obviously we don’t want to look bad. But, why do we suddenly need to be perfect on ONE day—especially when our significant other, family, and friends already know what we look like pretty well.
Why in the who-ha do we have this obsessive need to look “perfect” on our wedding day. (MOVIES, TELEVISION, THE DEVIL?)
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“What do you want to look like on your wedding day?” That is the question they always ask at the beginning of an appointment on SYTTD. But from the start, I knew what I didn’t want to look like! I know many women want to look like a princess at their wedding, ball gown, tiara, glass slippers, and all. Although I sure enjoyed the game Pretty Pretty Princess as a kid. (Do you remember?)
Pretty Pretty Princess via Amazon.com
I never wanted to be a princess on my wedding day! I think this stems back to my mother. You see, my mom is a realist. She and my dad have been together for over 30 years and, while they still stand strong, they have seen their fair share of marriages fail. So from an early age my mom liked to remind me that “life is not like the fairy tales.” She explained to me that while my Disney princess movies were fun, life rarely works out like that. And more importantly, she explained that relationships are a lot of hard work. The endings of fairy tales, when the couple marries, is really just the beginning of their story! So as excited as I am to plan an awesome party to celebrate the day Mr. Elk and I say “I do,” I cannot think of myself as a princess.
Most brides take steps before their weddings to ensure that they look their most beautiful on that special day. They increase the frequency or intensity of their workouts or hire personal trainers. They try new facial cleansers and products. They rub in self-tanning lotion. They buy new hair products. They keep their fingers and toes nicely manicured. They affix teeth whitening strips. Some—especially if they are featured on reality television shows—even get plastic surgery.
Image via Remote Patrolled / Screen shot of E!’s Bridalplasty
(That doesn’t mean I have tuberculosis. It actually stands for: Miss Fox, Licensed Massage Therapist, Tattooed Bride.)
While we’re on the topic of tattoos…
The more Foxy and I think about our respective wedding-day looks, the more little details we start thinking about. We’re not just thinking about the dress, the shoes, the suit, the flowers…we’re also thinking about the hair. More specifically, the length of his and the color of mine.
The shorter story of the two is in regard to Foxy’s beard. Currently? He looks like a (super cute) mountain man.
He never just trims—it’s either a full beard or completely clean shaven, with a week or two of, in my opinion, decent scruff.
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