Bulging Brides

I watched a few episodes - it's as bad as it could be. Idjits buy their dresses two sizes or so too small, then have 6 weeks to starve and do enough punishing exercise to fit them. THen it's supposed to be a lifestyle - they show her how fat she will get in the first 3 years if she doens't keep up the punishing program and how thin she'll be if she does. Uh-huh.

Funny, some of them weren't even overweight, IMO. They just bought their dresses too small. Why?

Zero isn't a size, it's a warning sign. - Carson Kressley

I agree, I don't understand the logic in paying good money for something that you can't actually fit into... Wouldn't we be saving ourselves alot of trouble as women if we just bought clothes that were comfortable and fit.

You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are. ~Jeph Jacques

There's this idea that the pictures will be around forever so a bride will want to look "her best" on the big day. Frankly, I plan to use my (someday) wedding photos to remind me that someone loves me (and my big fatness) just as I am.

The lack of logic in shows like this astounds me. Do the women who go on them go to bridal shops and say to themselves "Of course it makes perfect sense to buy a dress that fits me instead of buying something too small and then punishing and beating up my body in order to fit into it. But screw logic, I'm a glutton for punishment!"

*headdesk*

Heh. Last night when I was posting on the forum thread about Gillian McKeith I thought what a stupid and destructive idea this was, and whether the reality TV industry could sink any lower. McKeith, you might recall, presented a special series of her weight loss show called 'Three Fat Brides, One Thin Dress'. From the official site:

"Their wedding is the most exciting and stressful occasion of most women’s lives, and among all the things to worry about there’s always one big worry which plays on every bride’s mind in the build up to the big day – her weight!"

'One big worry'? What - even bigger than being jilted, or the car breaking down, the hall catching fire, or the groom running off with the head bridesmaid? Bigger than how you're gonna pay that humongous loan you've had to take out to get the Hello Magazine wedding of your dreams? And 'Every' bride's mind? Really? Or is that just wishful thinking on the part of Channel Four? Just goes to show that there's no such thing as an original idea nowadays. How long before 'Three Fat Teens, One Ridiculously Skinny Prom Dress'?

Stupid stupid stupid...

Chica I'd say they focus only on the bride because *everything* about weddings focuses only on the bride - it's HER big day, it's HER day her day her day blah blah fishcakes. The groom is incidental. There's an entire industry built around bride-ness - from magazines to the whole show wedding phenomenon. Who cares about the grooms? They are supposed to shut up and let the bride have her big day or something. It makes some people an awful lot of money. (I think Pandagon did a long and interesting post on this bride phenomenon not too long ago.)

Zero isn't a size, it's a warning sign. - Carson Kressley

"Caloric catastrophes"? Um, WHAT? It kinda almost goes without saying that calories-in, calories out does not explain weight gain. Besides, Sarah "has been packing on the pounds over the YEARS." Six weeks is supposed to be enough to undo these "catastrophes"?!? Plus, if the photo accompanying the article is "Sarah," I'd like to see where all these excess pounds are hiding.

Of course, this is just new packaging for an old idea: "It is woman's job to be pretty. Pretty means thin. No step undertaken to hew to the commandment shall be deemed too extreme or irrational. Fat women cannot possibly be sexual, beautiful, worthwhile, or 'deserving' of a wedding spectacle, because it's just not 'natural' for them to get married."

I would ask how long it's going to take before people rise up in protest about such obviously exploitative and grossly sexist shows...but when "The Biggest Loser" still commands ratings, there's not much point.

I'm telling ya...there's a total hatred for the *ADULT* woman body! It's so creepy, not to mention perverted, how we women are supposed to look like flat pre-pubescant (sp??) girls with boobs. Excuse me but sex with girls is WRONG so why has our culture built up this freaky women-looking-like-girls thing?? Good Lord!! Is it any wonder then that real girls and teens are being sexualized?? I see the FA movement not just as a way to stop the prejudice against fat people ~ but as a way to rein our culture in from this sex-girl thing!!!

Then of course there's the whole "empowerment of women" thing that's totally dying a death. Here are these brides ~ modern intelligent women! ~ and they are being *told* that they *must* look a certain way or else they are unacceptable as human beings. In the name of all that is sacred!!!! How long will it be before tight corsets come back and women find themselves being bullied into deforming their bodies???

I'm a conservative Christian and I dress in long skirts, wear bonnets, and I'm learning how to churn butter. I've even been accused of being Amish (hehehe) but I LOVE the fact that we women have the CHOICE to be who we want to be: Butch lesbian, Nun, Single Cat Lady, Conservative Christian...It's *our* choice and no one can tell us what we *must* be anymore. Or... can they? Because that's exactly what I see going on all around me with this obsession over thin female bodies and it's scaring the daylights out of me!!! While I exercise my free right to choose to wear Regency-style gowns and Amish dresses I totally believe in the right and the freedom for other women to wear mini-skirts or male attire ~ and yet it seems to me as if our fat-hating society is telling women that they DON'T have the right to be *themselves* and do their own thing. "Women, you must be scrawny, over-sexual, and walking around in only these approved styles of clothing...You must be arm candy, total sex objects, a slab of thin lean meat to be oggled by the men!"

It's not just Christian freaks like me that are laughed at and ostracized ~ it's other women from all walks of life who are being totally discriminated against becasue they do not fit this wacko thin-sexy-little-girl-with-boobs ideal!! My hope is that "Fat Acceptance" will not only help end the discrimination ~ but it will also stop this perverted sexy-girly thing and return FREEDOM to women!! I can't help but wonder if the Sufferagettes and the Women's Libbers have wasted all of their time making it possible for women to go to college and have careers ~ or stay home and be housewives! ~ all so that today's modern woman can turn around and be bullied into being a slinky sex object. I can't stand the fact that intelligent, talented, powerful women achive nothing in the eyes of our society unless they are sexy and thin. ARRRRG!!

Men aren't immune either ~ but as a woman I can't really speak for the sufferings of men ~ hopefully the guys will start speaking up more in the FA movement so everyone is aware that it's not just a "Woman Thing."

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." ~Mother Teresa

This smacks of She Who Shall Not Be Named. You know, the one who so vehemently calls herself herself. Oh damn, it's MeMe. Her introduction to the world as Chief Fat Hater was her own "Wedding Gown Challenge." I think it's funny. I still fit into my wedding dress nearly 10 years later. But it's nowhere near a size 4. How does THAT work?

"She Who Shall Not Be Named" that's great. I've been married for about a year and a half now, and I still wear my wedding dress from time to time (which isn't as psycho as it seems, I couldn't bring myself to buy a dress I'd only wear once, I grew up too poor for that, it's a bright red 50's style cocktail dress, that I wear to formal occations now) Of course, the wedding/diet loonies wouldn't even consider it a wedding dress.

I am so sick of women being reduced to arm candy, I'm with Fat Sheperdess. I mean, what happened to the feminists? Now there's this huge push to be skinny and pretty and have kids because they're the "hot new accessory" and not have a brain, because men don't like smart women. I'm sorry, I've spent most of my life playing with the boys, where I had to be smart and tough, and be able to drink any of them under the table, if you couldn't keep up you were nothing but a glorified blow up doll. Yet I still get this message from society that that's what I'm supposed to be, a pretty bimbo that's only good for sex.

I was a fat bride and went for several alterations before the wedding day--I never varied in size so there really wasn't too much to be done except to add a bow here and a ribbon there. However, I remember the angst of one of my best friends and her "bridesmaid gown" saga. She was a size 14, but insisted on buying the size 12 gown. According to her she would definitely be a size 12 by the day of my wedding. She starved her self, mostly living on Pepsi and cigarettes, and the day of the final fitting she was still a size 14. She wound up having to pay for both gowns and walked down the aisle with me in her 14. Be happy with who you are and for godssakes ENJOY your wedding day!

As a single cat lady liberal Christian who even wears blue jeans to church, I am also with Fat Shepherdess! It IS a creepy, almost fetish-like obsession that women have small bodies and huge boobs. Charisse Goodman pointed out that, while men who like fat women are almost universally denounced as fetishists with some kind of sick mommy complex, no one seems to realize the "fetishist" allegation can also be levied against men who express a fondness for women who have the bodies of adolescent boys, with the exception of the balloon sized breasts. Of course, to label either type of man a fetishist is largely silly, which was Goodman's point. Different strokes for different folks.

(I don't know why this type is so small. I hit the wrong command on my keyboard and this is what happened. Sorry!)

Well, I just think this mentality is NUTS! Of course, I've thought that about the whole wedding industry most of my life anyway. They slap the word "wedding", "bridal", or "marriage" on something, and charge you 2 - 10x what it would normally cost.

When my husband and I got married this last October, we had a dilemma. We wanted a regular wedding, but we are both against paying the "marriage" tax on items. We ended up getting married at DisneyWorld. The funny thing is, that ended up being cheaper than having a wedding at home probably would have been - but only because we had a small "Escape" wedding, where you are limited to no more than 18 guests. If you do the small wedding at Disney, it can be fairly reasonable - if you shop around for some of the items you want.

And for my dress - I didn't go from dress shop to dress shop trying on like most women do. I actually looked on-line for my dress. That way, I didn't get disappointed, finding a dress that wasn't offered in my size. If I'd had more time, my mom and I probably would have worked together and made one, but finding a pattern for what I wanted was impossible, and it would have taken too long for me to put together the pattern for what I wanted.

And once I found "the dress", I found what stores offered it, what prices it was available for on-line, and only bought it in a store when one gave me a price close enough to the on-line prices to make it worth while. One store refused to even deal with me when I told her what I was interested in, because the dress I wanted didn't cost enough! Grrrrr!!!!!!

And when it came in - it fit perfectly, except for the length and needing to be taken in under the arms just a little. I had some stress in buying it, because I didn't get to try it on - no one had a sample of that exact dress at all, let alone one in my size. But I had tried on dresses that had the same sihouette, and knew it would look good. Still, it was a little nerve-wracking - until it came in, and it was perfect!

And I didn't worry about my weight, or the dress fitting, or anything. It didn't cost a fotune, it was exactly what I wanted, and I didn't stress out like most of these women do. Why would you want to start your marriage that way? I just wanted to enjoy the whole thing.

And if you want to see the results, you can go to my web page... http://www.kims-world.net

Actually, we had problems for my husband too, finding his clothes for the wedding. We bought his tux, figured it would just be easier that way. And the tux itself wasn't too hard to find. The hard part was the vest and the tie. I don't like cummerbunds; I wanted him to wear a vest. But we couldn't find a vest in his size. Well, by the time we realized that, there was too much to do for the wedding, and I didn't have time to make that either. We finally ended up ordering one that was the closest we could find. I was going to alter it myself, but decided the stress because of the time contstraints wasn't worth it, and since the rest of the tux had to be altered anyway, we just talked to the tailor about altering the vest. He hesitated at first - I know he was going to explain how the entire back of the vest would have to be replaced, that he would practically have to re-make the vest. But I explained to him the way I was going to alter it, by just putting extension panels in the sides of the vest, and he smiled. He asked if we'd be all right with that, and I said of course, that you wouldn't be able to tell with his jacket on anyway, and even with his jacket off, it's an all white vest, so as long as the whites matched relatively well, you probably wouldn't be able to tell anyway. And he smiled again.

The vest looked great, and I think most people wouldn't have a clue the vest wasn't originally made that way.

I bought my wedding dress at a sample sale and it was a six. It fit when i bought it but I wanted it to be fitted not tight so i decided i should lose some weight anyway. I ate so little the week before I got married, my friends were worried I might not be able to stand during the service. I was having a really hard time standing during a whole hymn at church, that kind of thing. so yeah, a whole wedding was potentially a problem. besides that all I could talk and think about was whether the dress would fit, how fat I was. i had nightmares about it not fitting, up until the night before. and on the day of, it fit. yeah. I still thought I looked fat in some of the photos.

I regret every minute i wasted worrying about that dress and how I looked in it. I really do.

I can't figure out whether the motto of the network is WE empower women OR WE have more fun? Hmmm. Which is more ironic?

Maybe we should help them out with a new motto. How 'bout WE have fun torturing women!

My husband and I were married 17 years ago. I wanted to do the City Hall thing with just a couple of friends for lunch. He wanted a bigger deal (and a religious wedding) so we wound up doing something different -- 2 weddings:

Wedding 1 -- in our apartment. Both of us wore clothes we owned, we had a Unitarian minister officiating, and we invited a few close friends to the actual wedding. The next day we had an "open house" where a lot of people came and enjoyed themselves. I helped prepare some of the food, but it was mostly done by a Culinary-Institute-trained friend of ours. The cake came from the local bakery. The wine came from a local wine shop. No bridesmaids (I had a Man of Honor -- my friend from college), no grooms men, no muss , no fuss, no huge expense.

Wedding 2 -- a little more drama, but still ok. My husband and I were still Roman Catholic at the time, but I refused to give any money to the NYC diocese. So... because he wanted a religious wedding so badly, we agreed to be married in the church at my home parish in Madrid, Spain. My Mom, who still lives there and who did paralegal work for years, did all the paperwork. She also insisted on paying for a banquet at a local restaurant there (but it was very inexpensive compared to the ridiulous nonsense you see these days). I bought a cream colored suit and a green blouse (Mom had a fit -- she thought I should buy a "real" wedding dress -- but there wasn't much she could do about it). My husband forgot his suit here, so we had to buy him a new one when we got there. Most of the drama consisted of who would "give the bride away" (not something done in Spanish weddings and not something I'm comfortable with as a feminist -- we compromised -- I walked down the aisle with the best man -- which is the way that it is done -- AND my uncle).

If I had to do it again I'd just go for the City Hall, since I can't justify spending even the small amounts of money we spent (yeah -- really -- in the low four figures for both together) on a wedding. On the other hand, we had fun. I DO wish I'd taken more pictures of Wedding 1. I can't stand having my picture taken, but now I really wish I had done so...

Drama around clothing for either wedding -- absolute 0.

--Andy Jo--

For my wedding I didn't give a flying woop about my size. I found a fantastic satin-and-beaded dress with a long train on Ebay for $200 and I ordered a size 30 according to the size chart. Imagine my surprise when the dress arrived and it was almost three times too big for my body!!! I didn't lose an ounce of weight before my wedding and I love my wedding photos. Sadly I couldn't convince my Scottish husband to wear a kilt...

That "bulging brides" TV show can go stuff it up their snooty noses! Women are beautiful at every size!

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." ~Mother Teresa

WE TV boasts the network is for the empowerment of women, but I don't see how this new "show" if you wanna call it it, empowers women at all. If anything, it teaches them to hate their bodies and "lose weight to look great" at all costs. Sad!