Those days when you’re wearing the wrong knickers. Those days. Itching, hoiking, pulling, pinging — there’s no peace to be found in bad pants. A woman in the wrong knickers is a woman disarmed.
So tell me this: on a day when you’re meant to be looking and feeling good, why are you planning to stuff your backside into torture knickers?
Because bridal magazines. Because wedding industry. However savvy she is, however much she knows that the Cautionary Tale Of Liz Jones says never to believe magazines, an engaged lady is a vulnerable lady. There is a lot to do and there’s an awful lot to buy and in most cases, you haven’t done this before. The mags tell you that they know better. That they know best.
Convention says white lace. One bridal mag says stockings. Another says suspenders. Agent Provocateur makes like you can rule the world in a cream silk teddy. One Instagram account recommends a black latex minidress, which will be extra fun for summer brides – who doesn’t want to squeak and sweat their way through the day? Even though you’re a pack-of-five stripy cotton briefs kind of cat, you’re taken in.
Stop there. In just the same way that no amount of rose-petal-flinging and candle-lighting makes for romance, so no amount of white lace pant (and in the case of much lingerie, it really is a very small amount) is going to add to the brilliance or happiness of your wedding.
Perish the thought that on your wedding night (when roughly half of couples don’t Do It anyway, despite massive social pressure), your husband should see you exactly as he’s seen you in the preceding months and years.
He will be longing, when drunk and tired, to be faced with not only with extracting you from your dress, but also an extravagantly cantilevered sex truss worthy of Betty Page. Naturally he’s been planning his wedding pants for months. Oh, wait, what do you mean he’s in his Normal Pants? His fucking Normal Pants?
My newlywed advice to you is short and gentle: wear your favourite comfy pants. The ones you wear when it’s going to be a long old day. The ones you wear with a Fame t-shirt to watch Hollyoaks and eat straight out of the fridge at the weekend. The ones you know fit you, not the ones you bought a year before the wedding in anticipation you’d diet down to a size you last were when you were in primary school. Make your wedding pants your something old, not your something blue.
If you would prefer them for your something new, try the crazy soft microfibre ones from Marks and Sparks. There is never a bad day in these. Splash out and get a five pack for the honeymoon – why not? You’re a newlywed, after all. Go wild.
And if you fancy something snazzier than usual, save it for the morning after the wedding when you have plenty time and far less to think about: Mimi Holliday, Elle Macpherson and Accessorize pants are wearable, pretty and sized to fit rather than to agonise.
Follow this advice and you will look and feel like you, which is the only thing that really matters when it comes to wedding styling. Trust me – I’ve been there.
– CVRW
Yay to big comfy pants, maybe with a seamless material if your special dress is lacking in traditional poofy layers.
This made me laugh so much. Just recently been married and the whole wedding underwear ‘pressure’ was immense. Wtf? Why? Why just for women? My husband couldn’t understand it and neither could I. Hence comfy pants for the wedding day and sensible tights!!
Love this article. I’m getting married this year and I’m continually annoyed by the number of things I’m supposed to do that cost ridiculous amounts. Why would I need specific wedding lingerie?!!
Yeah this is fair. I’ll go along with this. Big day=Big pants!
I wore my old school PE knickers under my wedding dress; old, (navy) blue and fabulous for tummy control as it happens.
Gave my husband a good laugh too come our wedding night (yes, we were among the ‘too p!ssed and knackered to do it’ half you speak off, and no, they weren’t a kink…ain’t nothing sexy about ugly ’80s school knickers, they’re comfy blighters though)!
Marks & Sparks multipacks rock
Love my Marks and Sparks 5 pack. Accidentally got the wrong ones once and there’s full butt cheek coverage and they go right up to my belly button. When I realised I’d bought the wrong pants, I didn’t take them back. I embraced them.
Best wardrobe decision in years.
Me too! I know exactly the pants you mean. I just wish they had come in a 7-pack instead of a 5-pack so I had a pair every day!
I wear cotton undies. Nothing sexy about the yeast infection you get from wearing lacy ones!
These pants come highly recommended http://www.whomadeyourpants.co.uk/pages/shop
On my wedding day I didn’t wear any underwear at all, and the shoes only lasted for the ceremony and I was barefoot thereafter. Underwear total cost- £0, shoes, £187. On you wedding day, nobody sees your shoes. Sneakers would be fine!
I bought some comfy knickers for my wedding day, they were from M&S and had a token bit of lace on but were so comfy! Same with my hold-ups, nice comfy ones. Only my husband saw them and he thought they were lovely. Oh and he did wear special pants, he colour coordinated with the rest of the wedding stuff!
Well said dears. Granted when I was married last month I did wear “wedding lingerie” (damn me for not reading this piece earlier and taking a more feminist stance on this much as I did the ceremony; speeches and name issues) nevertheless I did manage to find a pretty, but comfy, pair of pants to wear (no bra since I had a backless dress). I was pleased with my purchase, particularly since it was 50% off – get married in January ladies, the sales are a wallet saving angel sent from heaven – but was enraged when I jokingly suggested buying some “tuxedo” undies for my husband and he couldn’t even comprehend wearing special pants for the big day. Suffice to say after I lectured him for 20 minutes on the sexist approach to weddings and outlined why he unwittingly bought in to the idea that a wedding is all about the bride and not about the couple or the marriage to come, he went and bought some new pants. Just saying the alternative approach, if you do WANT and CHOOSE to wear some sexy pants is to BOTH wear sexy pants, there is no reason he shouldn’t look great too, in case you are one of the 50% of couples…