Wedding day with an ostomy

A little bit about me and my husband 

In 2017, I met my other half, Ben and in 2019, we got engaged. Ben had heard of Crohn’s Disease & a temporary colostomy before me from having family with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, but he has learnt so much from being with me such as the different stoma types, how chronic illness and having a stoma can affect me and knows that every case is different. Right from the start, he has been willingly involved with everything in my life with IBD and my ostomy just being two of those things. He really is a big reason for my strength today, alongside my family and is always thinking of ways that he can help me in daily life.

He also wears a bag each year on World Ostomy Day on 2nd October and puts cold liquid in it to get a feel of bag emptying! Having a chronic illness and an ostomy has never pushed him away from me, quite rightly and it will never push the right person away. It has brought us so much closer & he has seen me at my worst.

August

August 2022 was finally our wedding month. We were due to get married in August 2020 but we all know what stopped that and meant we had to postpone it.

Like a lot of girls when they’re growing up, I’d always dreamt of my wedding day but in the best way possible, my actual wedding day was nowhere near what I’d had in my mind growing up.

Deciding on our wedding style

I can’t say my ostomy played a massive part in wedding planning, but because of it, I am actually here to have been able to have got married and live such a perfect day with my now husband and our loved ones.

We always knew that we wanted our wedding to be informal and laidback. We decided straight away when we got to the planning stage (for wedding 2022) that we didn’t want any table plans, any long sit down meals or many formalities at all, to be honest. Of course, everyone is different with what they’d like and this is the thing with weddings, they are so personal & quite rightly so. It’s your wedding day so make it your own.

Super luckily, my husband’s Step Dad owns a marquee company, so very kindly put up the wedding marquee etc and lended us the venue to host our wedding after the registry office. It was a gorgeous countryside setting and we went for a rustic style as we’d always wanted to go for that sort of style, along with a sage and blush colour scheme.

Picking a dress

The wedding dress I had in mind was actually quite far off the one I ended up going with. I must admit that this part of the wedding planning did get me nervous, as well as excited. This is when having an ostomy did come to mind and I found myself getting apprehensive about going to the bridal shop and getting down to my underwear in front of a stranger countless times to try on dresses for one of the biggest days of my life.

I soon decided that I would wear my stoma supportwear the day I went to first try on wedding dresses which were my white high-waisted briefs from Comfizz. I have sworn by them since literally day dot that I started trying to make a “normal life” and I never underestimate just how much confidence they give me to feel secure, more confident, supported and discreet when I feel I’d like to be.

When I first went to try on dresses (which feels like ages ago now… wind back to early 2020), I did tell the lady in the shop about my illness and my ostomy bag and she soon put my mind at ease. I picked out about 12 dresses from around the shop to try on, which stood out to me as we walked round. I didn’t feel uneasy when it came to trying them on, as I knew I had explained about my ostomy so I knew they’d be aware. Trying on dresses honestly felt like a dream, even the ones I knew weren’t for me and the one I’d had my heart set on really didn’t work when I put it on. The skirt was really big so it absolutely drowned me! The dress that was about the seventh one I tried made me feel so at home in straight away and I knew it was the one.

I went for a dress that gave me rustic fairy-like and boho vibes and had quite a lightweight multi-layered tulle skirt on the bottom. I absolutely adored the back of my dress too. Having a fairly lightweight skirt to me was important as I had in mind how I’d work out the logistics of bag-emptying on the day! My Mum had volunteered straight away to be the designated toilet partner for me on my wedding day. Just like all my life, she has literally been through it all with me and so willingly too.

Choosing our wedding food

When choosing our wedding food, we wanted to go with something that obviously suited everyone’s likes and dietary requirements and food that wouldn’t cause my ostomy any problems. We decided to go with a hog roast but they also provided vegetarian and gluten free options for us with lots of salad bowls. The food was absolutely gorgeous and we had our yummy wedding cake that one of my bridesmaids made for dessert, alongside a choice of cupcakes as well to match the cake.

Most of our wedding we got stuck in crafting things and really making it our own, along with our family and loved ones. My father-in-law made us a frame and shelfing unit to make a crisp wall and to have chocolate bars in for snacks, and we also had a really quirky little sweet table for people to make up their own little sweets bags with.

We also booked a really cute gin bar, which was styled in an old horsebox, to provide our drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and we gifted our guests their first drink and welcome drinks each. As Bride & Groom we got to pick our favourite cocktails or alcoholic drinks too to have as personalised drinks on the day for people to order ‘his or hers’. I went for a raspberry gin and lemonade & my husband chose a watermelon mojito. They were definitely approved by us and our guests.

On the day

The wedding day itself was nothing short of perfect. It was a sunny, hot day in August, but thankfully I managed to keep hydrated with squash and lots of non-alcoholic drinks alongside a few gin and lemonades for a tipple!

Seeing Ben, my husband, for the first time was a feeling I’ll never forget, along with many others on the day such as first seeing my family and my Dad giving me away, having photos taking with our dogs before we left and plucking up the courage to sing to my husband on the night at our disco.

Nothing about my ostomy bag bothered me on our wedding day. If anything, I was thinking of it in a positive light because I was able to live to have a wedding and be able to enjoy our special day without any pain, urgency or nausea.

My tips for wedding planning

1. Try and take things one at a time and start planning with plenty of time to go so that this takes any stress caused by bad planning & time management away.
2. Remember, it’s your day, so you and your partner aren’t going to be able to please everyone and you shouldn’t have to. This is a day about you both & those that matter will just be happy to celebrate with you.
3. It really does help when wedding dress shopping if you explain that you have a stoma bag & express what style you would like to go for. Also let your wedding dress shop know if there’s any styles you’d prefer to avoid.
4. Make a spreadsheet and break tasks down into sections. See if you can delegate anything to anyone else to help share the preparation load! It is so much fun getting your loved ones involved and it’s amazing how much it brings people together who probably wouldn’t cross paths otherwise very often, if at all.
5. You are more than your stoma. Yes, you will naturally think about it and take it into consideration but your stoma doesn’t define who you are. Use your wedding day to include so many things that define you, that you love, and that you love as a couple. Our wedding day was definitely the best day of our lives yet, and we vowed that we would spend as much time together on the day as we could and let people come to us. We took 10 minutes to ourselves away from it all to just sit, be with each other and reflect on the day, whilst bathing in our happiness as newly husband and wife!

Amy @ibdwarriorprincess