I just got done reading about a woman who put herself on a feeding tube diet. She literally allowed a feeding tube to be placed in her nose, down her esophagus, and into her stomach to deliver a paltry 800 calories a day.  She isn’t sick; she’s a bride that’s trying to lose weight for her wedding.

Let me tell you what feeding tubes are for:

1.Babies, children, and adults who are sick who cannot get enough nourishment into their bodies to stay alive.

That’s it.

Let me tell you what they are not for:

1.To make sure you lose weight for your wedding.

I’m not judging this woman; clearly she has enough self-esteem problems that she doesn’t need me giving her crap. But what I am going to do is tell each and every one of you beautiful brides that you are indeed beautiful. You do not need to put a feeding tube in your nose to lose weight. If you want to lose weight, which many brides do, please do it as a healthy life change. Nothing wrong with changing your diet and exercising more so you can shed unwanted pounds. Make it a promise to yourself to be a healthy wife for your future husband. Make the promise together, a couple who exercises together and eats healthy together gets to live longer together! I’m not making that up, the more things you can do as a couple the stronger your relationship will be. I’m no Dr.Phil but this a relationship fact.

Oh and if your soon to be spouse thinks this feeding tube diet is a great idea then let’s add that guy to the list of “men you do not date/marry”  (btw that is a hilarious article..but,I’m pretty sure there are no guys left to date after that list, so reader beware!).

Anyway…my dearest brides, you have enough stress placed on you to make your wedding day perfect, to look perfect and to be perfect. But let me remind you, perfect isn’t what he fell in love with. Perfect isn’t what your friends love about you, sh!t if you were actually perfect no one would like you! Remember that.   Your wedding is about being in love and making a commitment to love each other through thick and thin and that is all you need in order to have a perfect wedding day.

Cheers

There are many girls/women out there that have been dreaming of their wedding their whole lives, planning, pinning, or just pretending all things wedding. While they are doing all this preemptive planning I want to know do they think about changing their name as well? Do they wonder what their last name will end up as or is that a detail that isn’t really thought about? Because I think about it, changing one’s last name seems so personal, so life altering, almost like you’ve been given a new identity, that I personally struggle with the decision.

If I look at identity as a whole, it’s pretty darn important.  For example did you see what happened to GAP when they tried to change their logo? It lasted all of 18 hours. It was a great publicity stunt if that was what they intended, but I don’t think that was what they were going for.  I’m not saying I’m as known or as important as an international clothing outlet, but, there is value in this analogy. How the public reacted to GAP changing their logo is a prime example of how attached I am to my last name, and, well, actually yours too. Well, maybe not yours, but all the girls I went to high school and college with, I can’t handle your new last names, you’re always going to be Lauren D or Annie C to me.

I understand why women change their names, I mean once you start having children it is nice to all be under one name. Heaven forbid one gigantic name: Adeline Loraine Fredrickson-Harris. It’s a freaking mouthful.  But what is the right thing to do? What if you’re the last of your last name?! How sad is that? What if you’ve been working your little tail off and everyone in the world knows who you are? What if you haven’t been working or you’re not the last of your kind and you just really like your last name? Or what if your soon to be last name is just awful? I met a guy with an awful last name and one of the first questions out of my mouth was, “Do you expect your significant other to take your last name when that day finally arrives?” “Absolutely” he said, so quickly that I felt almost ashamed for asking, but I didn’t let it go. I can never let things like this go, I begged on behalf of his nonexistent future wife. “How can you expect a woman to take that last name?”  “How!? Answer me with something better than what you’re telling me” To no avail, he was certain that he would make his wife don his horrific last name.  I felt and still feel bad for his wife, I hope one day I get to meet her and tell her that I tried.

I have no solution for this name game; I don’t even know for sure what I would do when the time comes. I wish I did. So for now I get to play devil’s advocate for either side of the argument that isn’t well represented. Besides it’s always fun to stir the pot.

Cheers

I might get in trouble posting this, I may get a lot of people not agreeing with me, so be it.  I was asked a simple question today by a co-worker:  ”What’s the groom’s role in the wedding?” I was only half paying attention to him because I was too busy pinning on Pinterest (need an invite? I’ll hook you up) and I flippantly said: “Show up.”   I then stopped pinning and looked up at my male co-worker, his mouth was open and a shear look of confusion past over his face, “Really? You really think that’s his role?”

On further examination of my response I most definitely think that is the groom’s role. I’ve been married, I was the bride that didn’t care what my wedding seating chart was, I was not that little girl who had her big day planned by the time she was twelve, so in my first wedding I honestly wanted his opinion.  I really wanted him to feel included, so I of course included him. We had an argument over china patterns, like a full blown argument in the middle of a really “fancy” store. I almost died, it was an out of body experience for me, I couldn’t believe that this man, the man I was marrying was literally fighting with me over china patterns. Why does he care? Seriously why the hell does he have an actual opinion on this? Well duh, it’s because I asked him too! I asked him to come along with me and give it the old college try and be a part of a team. On closer introspection, what I really wanted was for him to do was pretend he cared and let me do it. Even though I didn’t care I really didn’t want his opinion either.

So for this go around… once I get this ring:

I want to say: “Don’t worry darling I’ve got the wedding completely planned. Please show up wearing this:

It may be heartless but I don’t care because this go around I know what I want, I have 20 Pinterest boards dedicated to what I think I might want. And whenever “Smolder Pony” (inside joke, will explain in a future posts) decides to ask me I’ll be ready to to say yes and ask him to leave me alone while I’ll plan everything.  Before you get your garters in a bunch, being the best-engaged-to-be-engaged girl I know I will certainly add tidbits of what he likes to my planning, I’m not completely heartless after all.

Cheers!