Wedding woes

I’ve had a wedding approaching and I had nothing to wear. I know people often say this, but I was three months postpartum, and I didn’t recognise my body in my old clothes. Not a unique problem perhaps but one that caused a low level panic in the weeks leading up to it. I needed a dress that was both flattering and that I could breastfeed in. Turns out it’s harder than I thought – and I’d left it late, hoping my body fat would miraculously melt away in the run up. A week out and that hadn’t happened, and so I turned to Spanx.

I had my suspicions that I wouldn’t look the same this time around as I did after my first pregnancy. My due date came and went with this one and every day past it felt like the poor skin around my stomach reached a new level of tightness. When I eventually did give birth, I remember feeling like a deflated hot air balloon, my body now stranger to me than it was when I was pregnant. 

It’s not that I’m not grateful for what my body has done. I’m in awe of how it carried this baby for nine months and took me safely through birth but body acceptance be damned when a dressy event looms. Also, there’s nothing quite like this kind of thing to help you part with your money. 

Gone is the carefully curated budget. In its place a financial blindness that fails to acknowledge the pound signs as real. Whereas the day before I decided against that £4 coffee at the local cafe, starkly aware of how these little purchases add up, today that £150 dress in two different sizes is fine. My poor debit card took such a beating that my bank promptly blocked my purchases as they were so big and probably frenzied looking. 

As each new package arrived, I’d hope that this would be the one. I imagined a striking moment where I’d put the dress on and marvel at how good I looked. Reader, that moment did not come. In fact, the first dress that arrived was tried on, my husband complimented me on it but all I could think was, “who the f**k is that?!” when I looked in the mirror. Then, almost as quickly, it was ripped off in disgust. 

I kept on at it. Parcels seemed to pour through the door right up until the final week before the wedding. I somehow managed to whittle it down to two choices, both “fine”. Not my usual bold “look at me” outfit I favoured in years gone by but kind of a sweet-maybe-slightly-nothingy- look. The kind of dress people would say I looked nice in, which always struck me as a pretty bland compliment.

On top of the dress, there’s the hastily acquired haircut and highlights. Sure I could forgo both but when the body doesn’t play ball, having good hair feels even more important. So, all in all, a pretty costly exercise.

How do women manage these things financially? Probably with more planning than I had. But these “hidden” costs add up for mothers. Our bodies have been through so much and if they don’t return to their original size and shape, we’re forced to get new things. A cost that is rarely acknowledged.