Earlier this week, the story of brides losing weight through a "feeding tube" diet got passed around our office. The ‘K-E Diet’ (or the Ketogenic Enteral Nutrition diet) was created by Florida-based Dr Oliver Di Pietro and promises to shed 20lbs in just 10 days. Dieters have a small nasogastric tube inserted into the nose, which constantly deposits a liquid solution, containing a mix of protein, fat and water, into the body. Um, yuck.
Most of our team was beyond shocked that someone came up with this but we weren't totally shocked brides were doing it (and one of us who will remain nameless was actually tempted by this idea). The pressure to look perfect on your wedding day is pretty intense.
But it made me wonder if this is another example of brides losing sight of the whole purpose of a wedding, and for that matter, a marriage. What does it really say about our society that we are willing to walk around for 10 days with a tube dangling out of our noses so we'll look better for one day? Nothing good.
There is already a disproportionate emphasis on the wedding day part of the marriage process without as much attention on what will happen after the honeymoon. It's so easy to get caught up in the idea of creating one "perfect" day that's worthy of being featured on a popular blog or magazine that everything else can get put on the back-burner. I was reminded of this recently when I heard of two couples who parted ways only months after their fabulous weddings.
I think the feeding tube phenomenon goes lockstep with this short-sightedness. A wedding should not be about how good you look on one day, no matter how much every thing we read tells us. Sure, you want to look great but manipulating your body to go into a state of ketosis puts an unbalanced importance on the superficial elements of the wedding. And, yes, how good you look is a superficial part of the process.
Not that I'm slamming everything superficial about weddings because that's what I spend a lot of my time planning: the details, the look, the flow. All of those things are important in putting together a successful wedding. But they aren't critical to a good marriage, and I think we need to remind ourselves that the wedding is just a small part of the more important marriage. And how we look on one day of our lives is not as important as how we feel and how we live for the rest of them.
A wedding should be a celebration of your life and future to come not the be-all and end-all of your life. I would love to see couples spending just as much time and attention nurturing their relationship as they do debating which band to book or just as much money on dinners out together as they do on their wedding flowers. And certainly the money and time spent walking around with a feeding tube stuck up your nose could be better spent somehow? I can think of about a thousand ways.
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