The Wedding Industry…enforcing positive body image?!

Posted by Marielle in Weddings.

Or, “My totally unexpected wedding dress success story.”

This is my first post in the Wedding blog, so let me introduce myself quickly: I’m a 23-year old queer casual femme who has been planning her wedding for almost two years… and somehow, I’m still in the beginning stages. I’m engaged to an awesome man, a guy I knew I would marry shortly after we met at age 15 (even if I didn’t know much else about myself back then). We’ve both grown a lot since then, separately, but somehow amazingly in the same direction. After a 4-year relationship hiatus, we got back together in college and knew we were meant to be. We got engaged on January 1, 2007 and we’ve finally attempted to set a date for Sept. 13, 2009. We haven’t picked a place yet because of a long and painful saga trying to find a kosher caterer in Eastern Pennsylvania — but that’s a blog post for another time. I’m an Indiebride wanna-be but taming the indie-bridal beast is an ever more daunting task. So hopefully I’ll use my trials and tribulations to help you find a comfy spot between the industry rock and the indie hard place.

So, let me tell you how I was totally shocked by David’s Bridal.

For starters, I am a groovy chick. And I mean that in the curvacious, full-figured sense. My bust-waist-hip measurements are something like 38″-34″-46″. The fashion world sometimes considers making clothes for women like me, when it’s marketable, but usually they are baggy, figure-hiding affairs. I’m a fat-bottomed girl, if you will (which is great, since I just bought a bicycle) and I don’t own dresses. Mostly because the ones that fit on top bust seams on the bottom and the ones that flatter my hips drape off my shoulders.

So anyway, I didn’t expect wedding-dress browsing to go well at all. First of all, I hate David’s Bridal. I have three sisters, two of which are older than me, and both of them got their gowns and all our bridesmaid dresses at David’s Bridal. The dresses are these over-priced, mass-produced, completely impractical and not particularly attractive articles. And the idea of shopping for this expensive Halloween costume when I could just buy a few bolts of fabric at Joann’s and sew my own felt like a waste of time.

As it turns out, my bridal dress experience was nothing like trying to find the only “clover” A-line dress in the store that hides paunchy stomachs and accentuates the bust. Buying a bridal gown, even at this A1 example of the wedding industrial complex felt good.

First off, the woman who worked with me was a dream. She took me on like a dedicated case worker, determined to find the moment when I’d suddenly love my body. My oldest and younger sister came along and together the three women picked out four gorgeous dresses. I know the woman’s job is to make me feel good about myself so I’ll buy her $1,100 dresses. I know that. But she was fun; she didn’t take the process too seriously — just enough to do her job. She helped me squeeze into an enviable DD corset and told me that when it comes to wedding dresses, size doesn’t matter; it’s just about getting the right fit.

I don’t know what she did, but she made me feel like a goddess, or a queen. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter how out of control your body shape is. Somewhere, there is a wedding dress that makes it look sexy. And it might just be at that industry establishment around the corner. The dress pictured below is the first one I tried on. It felt like wearing a Renaissance fair corset with a quilt sewn to the waste. The train is a tad excessive, but actually the most manageable of all the gowns I tried on. I just was shocked, looking into the mirror and seeing my body transformed into something akin to all the Barbie dolls and Disney princesses of my childhood, only smart, sexy and confident.

I can’t explain what came over me gazing into the mirror wearing this thing. I was filled with inspiration — “Maybe we should have a masquerade-themed wedding.” Suddenly I was royalty. All because of one designer dress. The dress is on sale, I might add, in the $600-range.

This is temptation at it’s finest. As an amateur/intermediate seamstress, I had visions and visions of the many ways I could make my own dress, get married in the woods, having a camping honeymoon and wear jewelry I dug up on Etsy. Wearing this gown makes me want to throw it away and spend $30k on a grand wedding with sculpture gardens and signature cocktails.

While the fight to balance industry conventions with indie ingenuity rages on, for now I can simply thank David’s Bridal for helping me see the things that have always been beautiful about myself. An unexpected self-esteem boost courtesy of the people who’ve always done me wrong.

Weddings |