Julie Houts - Literally Me

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When Jared first proposed, I was shocked. Not necessarily about the proposal, but more because I immediately understood how much work I had to do before the wedding. Not even for the wedding. More like on ME. I was nowhere close to the person I wanted to look like when I married Jared. When I imagined myself as a bride, I imagined that moment when everyone would first see me, and I just felt like I wanted to hear audible gasps. Not necessarily because of how truly stunning I looked. I mean, that. Obviously that. But more like, about my transformation. Like, they all thought they knew what I looked like, and my basic body type, and then its very JOKES ON YOU! And you, too, Jared, because I am physically an entirely different person!

So the first, and really most important, part of my transformation was my weight loss. I knew this would be the key to achieving that Wait, I thought Jared was marrying Hayley. Our Hayley. And so who is this person? What is going on here? reaction. As is, I am a fit person who takes care of her body. Jared jokes that its obsessive and unhealthy, but then I typically make a joke about the fact that he routinely works eighty-plus-hour weeks with near-constant travel for his finance job and so we all have our funny quirks, and thats why we love each other. Its what makes us us . Then he usually says something like, Someone has to pay for all this! while waving his hands in the air. At this point, I usually just disengage entirely, because first of all, hes being crazy, and second, its important not to stress out too much while planning your Big Day. I read that on The Ring.

So I started a detox diet eight months before the wedding. The diet said to eliminate sugar, dairy, carbs, meat, nuts, alcohol, caffeine, nightshades, algae, glass, plastic, synthetic velvet, and soy. I dont eat any of that anyway, but I do drink matcha and eat exclusively mushrooms, so I was worried at first. But I just stuck to my diet of hot water with lemon and compacted lampshade dust and was hardly ever hungry for eight months. But let me tell youI ate every last organic mushroom I could find the day after the wedding. Which actually was only four, but they were delicious.

So in addition to the diet, I started getting tri-weekly colonics three months out from my Big Day. I wanted to feel weightless, and all that water was really making me feel bloated and yucky. I would recommend doing a colonic an hour before walking down the aisle. I did, and my stomach was so flat it was basically concave.

In terms of fitness, I stuck to my daily eight-mile five a.m. run but added private Pilates classes and barre classes as well as a boxing instructor. Closer to the wedding, I upped my cardio to include an additional eight-mile daily run, and that really helped to get those extra pounds off.

For beauty, I figured I needed to focus the most on my skin, as obviously my goal was to wear no makeup at my wedding and look completely flawless in photos and in real life. You know, people throw around the word flawless a lot, and I get it. I mean, I too revere Beyonc in a religious way. But when I say flawless, I mean TRULY WITHOUT FLAWS. That takes a lot of work and determination to achieve.

Thats where the shock therapy comes in. I began seeing Mara Lynley-Rose three months before the big day. She uses electroshock therapy on your face to simultaneously stimulate and paralyze it. Its amazing.

And here, I must mention my love, Jared. After fifteen years of dating, we were at a level where I felt completely comfortable with him. Like no ask would be too big. So when I was unable to drink my water and eat my dust biscuits in the weeks before the wedding, he was right there, emailing his assistant Megan to come feed me. I think I knew in those moments how much Jared truly loved me. Megan must have, too, because she usually cried silently the entire time she was feeding me.

I stuck to my routine with my existing facialist, Francoise Bouton, who is truly a goddess. Closer to the wedding, we introduced swan blood to my routine, and I really noticed a difference. My skin felt tighter, almost taut. Ever since I turned thirty-one this year, my skin has gotten so saggy and dry. Francoise said it was in my head. And I said, Ha! I wish that were true! Im an old dried-up hag now. But oh, well, Jareds stuck with me! Unless we get a divorce. But I truly dont think we will. Honestly. Then Francoise was like, Just lie still, Hayley, and let the swan blood do its work.

I had my eyebrows all ripped out and put back in more evenly spaced. I felt like they were patchy, and just knowing that some hair follicles were closer together than others really bothered me. Theres something grotesque about it. Do you know Soup? Not the food, the brow specialist in Tribeca. Her name is Soup Li. She is an actual living genius. Anyway, she did them. My eyebrows. People tell me how expressive they are.

You know how they say that if your teeth are loose or falling out in your dreams, then you must be anxious? Well, I must be a REALLY anxious person, because two months before the wedding, my teeth literally began crumbling and falling out of my mouth. It was disgusting. So I had to get all new teeth, which Jared was not thrilled about, to say the least. He kept saying my new teeth were costing almost as much as the wedding, which is completely insane, because the wedding I KNOW costs so much more, and beyond that, I was like, Do you really want a bride with no teeth? and he admitted that no, he did not. So the teeth were a thing.

I am a natural blonde, but for my wedding, I wanted to be blonder. Like, imagine when you stare at the sun and then look away, and then its so light you cant see anything at all. That was my inspiration. So I met with five different colorists before meeting with Oscar Blanci, who gave me my blonde. We ended up just stripping my hair of all its natural blonde and then just painting on a sort of glaze made from the luminescent abdomen of a firefly that is indigenous to Bora Bora.