diet pills and the UK wedding show

I'm going to keep wedding talk to a bare minimum on here, that said, this post is sort of about weddings but it's mostly just me having a rant.

Last Sunday Mitch and I went to the UK Wedding Show held at London's Excel centre. Overall it was pretty much what I expected, lots of stalls trying to get you sign-up to/buy stuff, people in the wedding biz talking at you, collecting email addresses and giving out countless brochures and leaflets. We'd only gone to the show because A) I was curious and B) we thought it might give us some ideas for our day. Suffice to say, I found the experience rather terrifying. As we entered the show a big lovely 'Bride' sticker was slapped on me, which served as a beacon for wedding biz people to pummel me with a barrage of questions about 'the big day' - photographer, venue, catering, make-up, dress, hair, entertainment for the guests, chair covers (I do not understand this one in the slightest). I realise they were just doing their job, and a couple of them seemed genuinely nice, but as we haven't really started planning anything yet the constant questions just served as an overwhelming reminder that there's tons of stuff to organise. Needless to say I was super happy to take a seat away from the stalls to watch the fashion show, which was by far the best part of the day. It was great to see a variety of dresses (even if they were all waaaay out of my price range) on models of different sizes. It's definitely given me some food for thought...

If the fashion show was the highlight, the event's low point revealed itself in the free 'goody bag'. Amongst lip balms, perfume sachets, more leaflets (so many leaflets!!!) and gems for your nails, there was a box of diet pills. Yes, diet pills. What The Actual F**k.

A 37 day 'treatment' of diet pills recommended, no less, by 'french doctors' (so many things wrong with that sentence alone). For a minute I thought: 'maybe I'm overreacting, they're just another thing to ignore like the nail art set'. But no it's not ok to give out diet pills like sweets. It sends a terrible message to brides-to-be, that message being "you need to loose weight for your wedding and here's a quick fix to do it". What if someone wasn't even thinking about slimming down for the big day, those little pills, filled with what looks like sawdust, may make them think that they should loose weight, the UK Wedding Show clearly thinks we all should. And surely, if you're interested in looking and feeling better about your body for the wedding, you'd do some some exercise and eat more vegetables not take diet pills! I was and still am horrified, much like everyone I've told. I don't think I'll be doing another wedding show again, Mitch and I (along with support from our friends and family) will be just fine figuring it out on our own.

A couple of non-offensive things we also saw that day...

One of the wedding dress stalls sold only vintage pieces. There were some beautiful lace ones but alas I'm not quite the right shape for a vintage number. It didn't stop me admiring the jewellery though - how about those pearl earrings in the clam shaped box! Fabulous, no?

Please excuse  my crappy phone photography. Upon leaving the excel centre we got  a spectacular view of the Air Line with the setting sun glinting off the suspended carriages. This picture really doesn't do it justice. It looked like something from those future concept sketches from the 50s and 60s. I'm yet to go on it but one day I will, I'm guessing the views are pretty good.