by Susan Wiggs
But here’s the thing about Diane: she’s a perfectionist. And people, perfectionists are the best members to have on your team when you’re a bride.
Diane wasn’t going to settle for anything less than turning my face into a Neutrogena advertisement. She got up from her stool and strode out of the room, telling me that she would be back in a minute.
Turns out she went to the hospital’s best dermatologist and told her about my plight. Apparently, the doctor took pity on me, a broken-out bride-to-be, and agreed to see me during her lunch break.
Since we had an hour to kill, Diane decided to pull out the big guns on my face. She gave me the facial to end all facials, a forty-five-minute experience that was so potent, so effective, so intense that I’m pretty sure I blacked out for part of it. No fewer than three masks were applied to my eruptive skin, along with countless different tonics and lotions that seeped into my pores and made me smell like a tropical fruit smoothie for the next week. Diane scrubbed, squeezed and massaged my face until my skin was forced to submit to her ways.
About ten minutes before the facial was over, Diane turned away from me. I had those cold little eye patch doodads on my lids, so I couldn’t open my eyes to see what she was doing, but after a few seconds I could hear a crackling noise not unlike the sound bugs make when they hit the electric porch light and are zapped to death.
Diane draped my face in a thin gauze and told me to relax.
Although my eyes were closed, I could see bright blue flashes of light above my face, as though a blue strobe light had been turned on in the room. The next thing I knew, the zaps I had been hearing were landing on my face, stinging slightly and making frighteningly loud noises. I could smell the gauze on my skin burning slightly.
I won’t lie: I got sort of freaked out.
Diane was using some high-frequency current wand to penetrate my skin’s surface and kill all the bacteria lurking down there, waiting to ruin my wedding day. I was skeptical at first, but I looked in the mirror immediately afterward, and lo, my breakout had disappeared. It was a miracle! I was so happy that I told Diane I didn’t think I needed to see the dermatologist, but she said I should still keep the appointment because I needed to continue to keep my face in check, even after the wedding.
Before I went into the dermatologist’s office, though, Diane had a Serious Talk with me.
“You’re a popper, aren’t you?” she said gently.
I knew exactly what she meant, but I still feigned ignorance, hoping that unlike she had done on my face, she wouldn’t be able to dig below the surface of my denial and extract the ugly truth. “I…don’t know what you could possibly mean,” I muttered in a strangled voice.
“Honey, I’ve seen your type before. You have fine, normal skin but you look at your pores in a magnifying mirror and squeeze them until they have no choice but to become blemishes.”
I hung my head in shame.
“It’s okay. I’m a popper, too. Why d’you think I’m in this profession?”
She had caught me zit-handed.
Crap.
Diane told me—and I’m relaying this to you, Dear Readers, because I absolutely don’t believe you when you tell me that you haven’t turned your nose into a porcupine of extractions before—that I needed to lay off the squeezing. Permanently.
After explaining that I was causing the majority of my skin problems, Diane ushered me into the dermatologist’s office where I was prescribed a topical medication known for being gentle on the skin.
By the time my wedding rolled around, my face was as flawless as it had ever been. It was incredible. I never thought I would be able to put makeup on without devoting at least ten minutes to covering up red spots.
So, yeah, I’m embarrassed to reveal my love of squeezing pores, but I do so in the hopes that you might not have to go to a Medi-Spa a month before your wedding. (Although—aside from the scary-yet-awesome high-frequency light—it was pretty relaxing to get pampered a couple of times before the Big Day. I just wish I wasn’t stressed the whole time about the efficacy of what I was putting myself through.)
The upshot is that now I know how to treat my skin, and I no longer torture it. Sure, that’s about the most superficial thing a gal could possibly worry about, but having clear skin gives me confidence like you wouldn’t believe. On my wedding day, my face was the last thing on my mind, and since then I’ve really turned over a new leaf, pore-wise. I’m like a new woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get offered the presidency because my skin is so nice. I’m just saying.
But my skin was just the tip of the beautification iceberg. On the Wednesday before the wedding (aka the day before the day before the day before, but who would be silly enough to say something like that? Er…me), I set about putting the finishing touches on the tail end of a loooong process I like to call Operation Hot Bride.
First things first: I had to get ready for bathing suit weather on the h-moon. I had lost about twenty-five pounds and found the magic solution to getting clear skin, so next I needed to remove any, um, unsightly furriness from, you know, my armpits and other such areas. Ahem. Since I get a rash whenever someone looks at me funny, shaving and waxing weren’t really options—so I decided to try this process called sugaring.
Dear Readers, if you have not tried sugaring, you have not lived. My pits—they were hairless. My skin—it was smooth as a baby’s butt. My life—it was changed. Here’s the deal: sugaring is the process of hair removal using a paste made from sugar and lemon juice. It’s applied at room temperature—rather than at the scaldingly hot temperature of melted wax—and since it’s all natural, the paste only sticks to dead skin cells and hair. You know that feeling during waxing when she yanks off a particularly stubborn strip and you could SWEAR that your skin came with it? Doesn’t happen during sugaring. There are lots of other technical details I could get into for you, but honestly, all you need to know is that I walked out of my session with Erica at Jill Bucy Skincare in Seattle and I couldn’t tell that I’d had anything done. I wasn’t sore or itchy, as I always am after waxing and shaving. And I had zero ingrown hairs. Zero! Do you understand me?! I’m usually a WALKING ingrown hair!
Sugaring wasn’t the only new thing I tried before the wedding. Ohhhhh no. See, Erica, the gal who did my sugaring, had these amazing eyelashes. I was obsessed with them as soon as I saw her. And I figured that since she was, you know, ripping hair out of my body, she wouldn’t mind if I asked her what the deal was. Her eyelashes were long as a harbor seal’s but they weren’t fake—I couldn’t see a strip or a drop of glue anywhere.
It turns out that she had eyelash extensions. Long story short, that afternoon I found myself on my back in a salon for three-and-a-half hours getting synthetic eyelashes individually applied to my natural ones. One hundred forty per eye, to be exact. I am not exaggerating when I say that my eyelashes had their own silhouette. I didn’t even need sunglasses because of the shadow they cast on my eyes.
The best part about eyelash extensions? They fall out with your natural eyelashes. That means I got to look gorge for four to six weeks.
Yep, sugaring and eyelash extensions—who knew? Now, I’ll tell you right off the bat: neither procedure is cheap. Sugaring costs about the same as waxing at a spa (as opposed to waxing at a nail salon) and eyelash extensions start at around $150 or $200 and go up from there, depending on how much drama you’re looking for. But if you divide the cost out by the number of days that you’re gorge, and add to it the hours of makeup time you save, it’s not that bad, right?! RIGHT?! TELL ME IT’S OKAY TO SPEND HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS ON EYELASHES. It’s not, but hey, it was my wedding.
* * *
CHEAT SHEET
AFTER COUNTLESS HOURS OF MEDITATION ON
MY OWN WEDDING LOOK, I CAN NOW SUM UP MY
THOUGHTS AS FOLLOWS:
Don’t starve yourself or choose a hair/makeup style that will make you look like a diff erent person on your wedding day. You want to be the most beautiful
version of yourself—you’re not getting in shape for your wedding; you’re getting in shape for your life.
Looking back, even though my motivation was pure vanity, I did get myself back to my natural weight, and I finally felt comfortable in my own skin.
Sometimes you just need a panic-inducing situation to give you the kick in the pants you need to stop squeezing your nose pores in the mirror and get your booty to the gym.
* * *
12
A VERY
IMPORTANT DATE
Your wedding time line, and why you’ll probably throw that time line out the window on the Big Day
ELIZABETH
See, here’s the thing about weddings that nobody ever really seems to mention: all those guests are there for you. I guess nobody mentions it because saying it out loud sounds so obvious, but for me, there were about five separate times during the wedding weekend where I looked around at all the people who had made the trek to Seattle and said to myself, “They’re all here because of Dave and me…whoa.” It wasn’t necessarily a good or a bad feeling…just…weird. The realization really didn’t hit me, though, until the night before the wedding, when Dave’s family hosted a happy hour at Kells, our favorite pub in Seattle.
I’d also like to point out that I had zero to do with the planning of that whole shindig. I left the menu up to Dave, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t do a fantastic job. Everyone was happy. But first let’s rewind to the beginning of that day.
Our wedding planners had a morning of pampering planned for me and a couple of my bridesmaids, so I spent a luxurious few hours getting my nails and hair done. I got my finger and toenails painted in a color called “Mimosas for the Mr. and Mrs.” by OPI. (Aubrey, my bridesmaid, invitation designer and guru of taste and style, supplied it.)
The color is a beautiful milky pink that I NEVER would have picked off the shelf. All I knew was that I wanted my nails to look like the inside of a seashell—and they totally did. Yvonne, our photographer, said afterward that she was so glad I had a pretty manicure so she could take loads of ring photos. Also, while I’m at it, I gotta make a pitch for getting a professional mani-pedi. My manicure lasted without a scratch for a full two-and-a-half weeks after the wedding until I finally needed to cut my nails because I was starting to look like that lady in the Guinness Book of World Records who has nails so long they curl.
* * *
THE BIG DAY
Our wedding was carefully orchestrated down to the minute, starting two days before. Our wedding planners created the mother of all time lines for us, but gave it to us with a cautionary word: “This will get you off on the right foot,” Jody said, “but we’re going to get off track. So think of this like a set of movable pieces—there might come a time when we have to reorder or completely toss out some stuff.” I think she was worried that I would memorize the whole thing and then spend the entire wedding weekend staring at a clock, issuing angry commands when our events started to run late. I don’t blame her—I’m pretty neurotic. But as the wedding drew closer, a Zen-like calm descended over me and I peacefully let Jody and her team guide me. It was blissful. Probably not for them—we definitely ran into a couple of bumps in the road—but I managed to remain serene the whole time.
In general, here was the outline of our timeline:
7:30 a.m.
—bride wakes up, eats breakfast and gets started with hair and makeup
10:30 a.m.
—groom and groomsmen get together to begin the tuxedoing process
Noon
—bride, bridesmaids and bride’s parents have a photo shoot—then back to the hotel for lunch and little bit of down-time
1:00 p.m.
—groom, groomsmen and groom’s parents have a photo shoot
2:30 p.m.
—bride and groom arrive separately at the venue and are hidden from one another
3:00 p.m.
—guests start arriving
3:30 p.m.
—ceremony starts
4:45 p.m.
—bride and groom leave for portraits, guests depart for reception venue and have a cocktail hour until the happy couple returns
6:00 p.m.
—bride and groom make grand entrance to a rockin’ song and much fanfare
7:00 p.m.
—party tiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!
Midnight
—bride and groom depart, bow-chicka-bow-bow, and guests continue the party in the suite of a very generous groomsman
* * *
After getting my fingers and toes done, including the toenail-less tootsie, I headed back to our hotel to meet the most incredible, amazing, magnificent hairstylist of all time. Jacquelynn, whom I introduced to you in Chapter 7, was the hair prodigy behind my night-before and day-of wedding hair. Using a flat iron and the eye of a master artiste, she styled my locks in smooth, loopy curls. In hindsight, I would recommend that all brides ask their hair peeps what they should do to and with their hair the night before the wedding—Jacquelynn told me exactly which products to put in and even if she hadn’t styled my hair the night before, my tresses would have been properly prepped for the updo the following day.
The result? My hair the night before and the day of the wedding looked like a shampoo commercial.
Suddenly, as I slipped into my night-before outfit—a cream-colored, eyelet lace sundress and open-toed ivory pumps—I could see why women get postwedding depression. There was just no way I would ever look like that again…unless I moved back to Seattle and forced Jacquelynn and her husband to live with me and Dave, made a gazillion bucks to buy only tailored Anthropologie dresses and found a way to stay permanently in shape.
We arrived at Kells early to run through the wedding rehearsal. Talk about a head game. I felt like I was on drugs the whole time. Wedding drugs. I think the technical name is “less than twenty-four hours until I get married” drugs. As my dad and I practiced walking down the aisle and executing the father-to-groom bridal handoff, my chest constricted with the reality of what was about to happen. I was getting married tomorrow.
I looked around me. To either side of our makeshift altar fashioned from a tall bar table, I could see our bridesmaids and groomsmen—friends who had been handpicked to stand here with us during this moment. This was the first time I’d seen them in the same room together, and the weight of their love and support hit me in the face like a cream pie. Behind me, Dave’s and my parents sat together looking eager, nervous and a little queasy. My mom in particular.
We began to walk through the ceremony, and when we got to the vows, our officiant asked us to just say the first line to each other. “I, Elizabeth Anne Wiggs, come here today to join my life to yours as your wife,” he prompted me.
I opened my mouth.
I couldn’t speak.
My voice was being choked off by a large lump that had grown in my throat as we paced out our wedding ceremony.
I glanced over my shoulder and met my mom’s eyes. I could tell from her expression that she was feeling the exact same lump.
I gulped a shaky breath and managed to spit out my line without letting the tears in my eyes fall down my cheeks, and our practice ceremony continued. The rest of the rehearsal passed in a blur—part of me floated above the whole thing, looking down and thinking, “Is this seriously happening?” The part of me that was present in the moment felt every touch, every breath, with such intensity that I knew I would never forget these minutes. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered to life, then quieted, then fluttered again with no real rhyme or reason.
I was getting married tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I would be Dave’s wife.
Suddenly, people I hadn’t seen in years started pouring through the doors of the dimly lit pub for the happy hour Dave had planned and, just like that, our wedding weekend began. I spent the rest of the evening saying hi to old friends and having occasional panic attacks in the bathroom. It was awesome. Every once in a while, one of my bridesmaids
would find me and make sure I was holding up okay. Molly was especially alert to this, having been through it less than a year before. She had no problem muscling her way into a conversation I was having with Dave’s aunts, squaring out like a linebacker and saying gruffly, “Eat this” as she stuffed a forkful of penne pasta into my mouth.
Most of the photos taken of me that night reveal an I’m-keeping-it-together-but-I-may-have-just-messed-myself smile.
But then I would look over and see Dave and his brothers, or my best friend from childhood, or my mom with her brother and sister, and I would feel calm and ready to board the wedding train. Dave and I stepped outside for some air and we found ourselves in a sunbeam. I took it as a sign from the benevolent wedding gods. This was going to be fun. I was overwhelmed, excited, nervous and pretty damn gorgeous, if I do say so myself.
As the happy hour began to wind down, Dave and I left and went to Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park for our last moments alone as an unmarried couple. Friends and family asked where we were going as we walked away, but we just smiled and kept silent. Dave would be back to join the party soon, we told them, and I’d see everyone tomorrow.
I passed my mom on the way out. She pulled me in for a crushing hug, then held me at arm’s length and said, “Baby, I’m so proud of you.”
“I’ll see you in the morning, Mommy,” I said. I could feel the lump threatening to clog my throat again, but I swallowed it down and smiled at her.
Both of us had been so distracted by all the friends and family arriving that we’d barely had a moment to talk to each other. But we didn’t need to. I knew she was experiencing my feelings as her own. When I was a baby, she would magically wake seconds before I did each morning, hurrying into my room to be with me as my eyes opened because she felt my separation anxiety as keenly as if she were the one who was deathly afraid of being left alone. We were connected without having to talk about it, because I was as much a part of her as her right arm. She reached down, grabbed my hand and gave it two quick squeezes—a gesture she’d been doing since I was little to give me courage. I waved to her and turned to my almost-husband.