This season is all about glowing skin and luminous eyes. Reprinted by permission of Seal Press (and imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc. Offbeat Bride: The Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides. It’s wanting to feel your most lovely, whatever that entails.Ĭopyright 2007 by Ariel Meadow Stallings from The issue for most offbeat brides isn’t wanting to feel like a celebrity or a princess or somebody else’s image of beauty. I chose to believe the latter - but there’s no denying that I could simply be justifying my own behavior to myself. Was Laura a victim, or was she a well-educated woman who chose her own path through the thorny forest filled with tested-upon animals? She also still paid someone to do her hair for the wedding.
She worried that she was buying into "just one aspect of the whole Beauty Industrial Complex that also pushes breast implants and anorexia." She’s right, of course. She herself described her concern as "petty" and remembers how she felt guilty for indulging in a little vanity. Laura Thomas said, "I have a strong anticonsumerist streak, as well as a feminist distaste for societal expectations of women’s appearance." But she admitted to worrying about how white her teeth were. Facials! Waxing! Manicures! Massages! Pedicures! Elaborate up-dos! Professional makeup jobs! Weight loss! Body buffing! Botox injections! Bridal breast augmentation! Where does it end? Like I’d bought into the disgusting princess industry that exploits women by manufacturing vanity and anticipating every possible beauty need that blushing brides could possibly (not) need.
It felt like I’d signed a contract when I walked in, vowing to represent the salon’s name, care deeply about Nordstrom’s sales, and obsess over the color of the gunk in my pores. But I stayed and had my pores squeezed, feeling guilty and overly self-indulgent the whole time. I almost ran out of the salon, which was appropriately named High Maintenance. "The Nordstrom semiannual sale!" She whined on, "I’m so superficial! It’s my favorite day of the year! Shopping, shopping, shopping!" I was clearly not among my people.
The facial actually sort of sucked the salon receptionist squealed at me, "You know what tomorrow is, don’t you?" And yet I got a facial and full-body wax (yes, even pits). I planned to do my hair myself, winding it up in two buns to anchor my headpiece. This incongruity was only magnified by wedding preparations. I’m like a poodle with fancy sculpted leg puffs and a sh**-stained, matted tail.
I get my hair colored but only wash it twice a month and barely brush it. I tweeze my brows yet rarely worry about my armpits. I wax my legs but then go hairy months at time. I am full of contradictions when it comes to girlie-girlness.
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