Stop Treating Yourself Like a Project
As a beauty influencer, I became obsessed with my "wedding beauty prep timeline." Here's what I learned about life and love from chasing perfect skin (and failing).
I woke up with two zits on my chin the morning of my wedding. They were swollen, red, and raised–the kind even the best concealer can’t cover up. Despite my best efforts, including sleeping with Zitsticka microdart patches for five nights straight, the cysts wouldn’t flatten. I spent much of the year prior anxiously attempting everything in my power to prevent this exact scenario, but there was nothing I could do.
This week, I celebrated my second anniversary. Looking back, I regret wasting so much energy worrying about having perfect skin on my wedding day. I got sucked in deep into the wedding industrial complex, which will have you believe that you MUST look the most beautiful you have EVER looked on your wedding day (or else!!!!).
A lot of the pressure was self-imposed. As a beauty editor and influencer, my brain is an encyclopedia of treatments, services, and skincare advice. A wedding is a good catalyst to put all that to the test. Combining my knowledge with guides from Brides, Vogue, and searching “wedding beauty prep timelines” on TikTok, I created a “glow up” schedule that looked like this:
Just reading that makes me exhausted.
I remember back in 2016, when marriage felt eons away, Glossier founder Emily Weiss wrote an Into the Gloss post titled “Little Wedding Black Book.” In it, she detailed her extensive pre-wedding beauty routine including hydrocolon therapy and a “cleanse” involving no dairy, gluten, sugar, alcohol, and coffee. This post lives in my mind rent-free, particularly because, after doing all that, she wrote “I was 8/10 happy with how I looked.” Eight out of ten. I felt both appalled and in awe. As often happens when a thin, conventionally beautiful woman details her beauty routine (always ignoring contributions from genetics or wealth), I almost found it aspirational. Imagine having the time and money to commit to your highest aesthetic potential? Imagine what doors could open?
I think the wedding was an opportunity for me to do what many type A overachievers with millennial anxiety do: Turn myself into a project. Whether you’re reading a pile of books like Atomic Habits or The Artist’s Way (which is seeing a Doechii-influenced resurgence right now), listening to episode after episode of the Mel Robbins podcast reminding you to “let them,” or waking up at 5 am with a 10-step morning routine, the hamster wheel of self-optimization disguised as self-love never ends. Physical appearance is just another frontier. Having a wedding gives you an end date for this “project” in a way that other self-improvement endeavors don’t. Maybe that’s why I became such a willing participant. If I can have the clearest skin, and a “snatched” jawline, and the silkiest hair, and the slimmest waist by my wedding day, I can finally be in control. I can finally let myself be happy. I can finally be worthy of love.
Whether you’re reading a pile of books like Atomic Habits or The Artist’s Way…listening to episode after episode of the Mel Robbins podcast reminding you to “let them,” or waking up at 5 am with a 10-step morning routine, the hamster wheel of self-optimization disguised as self-love never ends.
But, you’re not a project, you’re human. You can’t control everything. You can exfoliate, and laser, and extract, and inject, and microneedle your face to your heart’s desire, and still wake up on one of the most important days of your life with visible breakouts. And who was it all for, anyway? Not my husband, that’s for sure.
Michael fell in love with me over greasy $1 pizzas with my lip gloss smeared off and my end-of-day mascara smudged. He fell in love with me bare-faced in Bermuda. We got engaged after being locked down in our tiny Brooklyn apartment during the peak of COVID, my highlights overgrown by a year and stress-induced hair loss showing at my temples. He’s seen me in all states of undone and thinks I’m most beautiful when I’m just waking up (mouth tape, sleeping mask, and all). And he means it. He’s not just saying it because it’s a nice thing to hear. I could’ve walked down the aisle wearing Dobby’s potato sack and zero makeup, and he’d still look at me like I’m a miracle. I’m often amazed at the depth and purity of his love. I once asked him, “How did I get so lucky?” and he answered, “You existed.” That simple. Like it was 1+1=2. And, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to try so hard.
I almost lost sight of the whole point of getting married. In trying to be the most beautiful version of myself, I think I was actually trying to be the most lovable version of myself.
Filipino culture can be very appearance-obsessed. Pageant queens get treated like messiahs. Family members make unsolicited comments about your weight gain or loss. Young girls get told they should compete to be Miss Universe or become an artista. I grew up believing that my value was in my beauty. External validation propped me up like puppet strings. Thinking back, my wedding beauty prep obsession wasn’t an attempt to be beautiful for my husband, or even myself – it was for anyone watching. People always emphasize how the photos are FOREVER!!! Your children or grandchildren will see this! It will get posted online for years to come! Being beautiful starts to feel like a duty.
It’s normal to want to look pretty on your wedding day. You shouldn’t pretend like you don’t care and reject hair and makeup or giving a damn. I’m just saying, BREATHE!!! You don’t need to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, on overhauling your entire skincare routine. You don’t need to follow a “wedding beauty prep timeline.” If you’ve never gotten filler, or Botox, or tried lasers and the like, you don’t need to start suddenly. If you get to your wedding day and have redness, fine lines, or pimples, it’s OKAY!
In trying to be the most beautiful version of myself, I think I was actually trying to be the most lovable version of myself.
I had acne on the morning of my wedding, and all I could do was surrender. With the chaotic, fun process of getting ready with my best friends and the talents of my hairstylist and makeup artist, the big, bad monster of imperfect skin that loomed so prominently in my mind for months shrank smaller and smaller until it no longer existed.
People say that your wedding goes by in a flash, and it's true. So many in-between moments get lost with time, but the important ones stick forever. I remember the silken comfort that settled inside me as I swayed with my husband during our first dance. I remember the delicious relief of waking up to a blue sky after the forecast said rain. I remember laughing during the 45-minute drive to the venue as my best friends karaoke-ed to an early 2000s playlist. I remember the crinkles on both my parents’ eyes as they smiled, linking both my arms before we walked down the aisle. I remember my utter disbelief: How was it possible I could love this much? I could be loved this much? I wasn’t a blushing bride, I was a beaming one. Joy seeped from every pore and made me radiant in a way no skincare routine could.
There’s just so much pressure to have things done “perfectly” when at the end of the day- none of it matters.
I had a super low key wedding ceremony at the Central Park Conservatory, that we announced to family and friends 2 months prior. I didn’t want the pressure of having expectations from ANYONE, esp my Filipino family.
There, I said it.
I feel this sooo much! I too woke up with a swollen pimple that wouldn't go down a week before my wedding - the pressure we put on ourselves to look perfect is crazy!