It's been 10 months since our wedding, but I still enjoy reading anything wedding-related. In fact, I haven't unsubscribed to bridal online magazines or websites to this day. Not only do they remind me of our own wedding; I also love seeing how other people's Big Day turned out.
Today, KP (or should I say, KPS) of Kosher Adobo, will share an interesting story from their unconventional wedding. KPS, like Shayne, is very much Filipino by heart despite having lived most of her life abroad. She writes eloquently, thus it's no surprise that she's been featured in Rappler and twice in WordPress' Freshly Pressed.
KP as she 'dances' down the aisle
The Newlyweds, Mr. & Mrs. S
About 20 minutes before my hair appointment and two and a half hours before J.’s and my wedding, I was at the mall looking for underwear.
Though I remembered to bring my wedding dress, shoes, and a bottle of nail polish to the hotel where my family and I had spent the night, I had forgotten everything else. My spotty memory is the reason I was wearing my floral romper for the second day in a row: the same one I wore at the bar the night prior when we welcomed our guests, the one I would wear at breakfast the next day when we said “goodbye and travel safely. ” The only thing that makes each outfit different is what I had on my head: a floral wreath J. picked up for me at King Richard’s Faire (Saturday night), a tangled mess (Sunday afternoon), and a few wayward bobbypins I forgot to remove (Monday morning).
“I’m getting married in a couple hours,” I said. “My dress is covered with sequins, so I need my underwear to be invisible.”
“Congratulations! I’m getting married in October,” the salesperson said, as I followed her to what I hoped would be a selection of paper-thin panties. Maybe I’d buy a pair with a butterfly or an applique rabbit or even a caption like “Huzzah!” Instead, I was staring down a wall of Spanx.
For those who are unfamiliar with Spanx and its cousins, it is euphemistically called intimate shapewear (i.e. it can reduce your waistline and suck in your stomach for you.) They are as much a many body-con dress-wearing fashionista’s secret as they are public knowledge. In 1985’s St. Elmo’s Fire in which, in the middle of making out with his college friend, Billy Hicks reaches under Wendy Beamish’s dress, feels her shapewear and asks about her scuba-suit. Later in Bridget Jones Diary, Daniel Cleaver calls them “gigantic underpants (hello, Mummy! ).”
While many articles out there explore how they literally choke your viscera, causing some pain and shallow breathing, I have to confess that I understand their appeal. You know those nights when you eat so much that you have to unzip your pants? Think of your Spanx as the thing that holds it in. Movie stars swear by it, as have I, who wore them more than several times back in 2006 when sweater dresses were in fashion.
But, until the afternoon of my wedding, I hadn’t even considered wearing them in almost eight years. I can’t remember why I stopped. It might have been for a reason as simple as my shrinking my sweater dresses into crop-tops when I threw them into the dryer on high heat. Maybe it’s because my sartorial tastes had changed. It could have been my hatred of Photoshopped images and my disgust with the bodyshaming culture. Or maybe I just wanted my hooha to breath in, breath out.
I honestly can’t remember.
All I know is that that day, I weighed my underwear options seriously. I mean, Spanx would make my blush-colored dress look seamless from every angle. I might even look the way I did when I first met J. at an Irish pub in Boston almost four years ago. I was maybe twenty pounds lighter, all my angles sharper.
Back then, I was waking up at five in the morning, running on the treadmill in my apartment building’s basement, heading to work, and coming home on most nights to a well-plated dinner for one. Though those years single and living alone were electrifying because I was, as Emily Dickinson wrote, “dwell[ing] in possibility,” there were many weekdays and nights that tasted thin. My childhood included dinner every night with my family and, later, sitting for hours at tables in boarding school, college, and my first job at a boarding school. This love for another’s laughter over chicken adobo is woven into my bones. Sometimes I’d eat with a friend and sometimes, an ex-boyfriend, but there’s a reason they are exes and so —
But that was then and this is now, T minus three hours from saying “I do,” and I could picture inhaling my dinner: the cheese platter, the bread basket, my salmon with lychee buerre blanc, and salted caramel gelato. Dancing down the aisle to Belinda Carlisle. Shaking my soul with my sisters to AC/DC at our reception. Embracing the people I love the most in this world and sharing my life with J., my husband, my love, my daily companion.
With him, I’ve had my best friend for whom to design dinners exactly like in the Food & Wine magazines he gets me. I have an audience for my Air Supply. He has seen me at my happiest (e.g. at my sisters’ weddings, with my parents); my saddest; and my fullest. J., my fiance, my husband, the love of my life, makes me feel like the most desirable woman in the world – even though I know I am not.
But it’s easy to believe almost anything with J. With him, I eat wide. I let all hang out.
With him, I can breathe.
That night at our reception, I ate everything on my plate and danced till my face ached. Catching my reflection in J.’s eyes (I mean, literally, I saw myself in his glasses), rounded belly, boy-cut, low-rise shorts, and all, I felt so beautiful.
Found KP's post interesting? Hop on over to her blog for more:
Kosher Adobo