Diary Of A Real Dubai Bride

After deciding on her wedding invites in October, our real bride Loren Penney has focused on the beauty aspect of wedding preparations in her latest diary entry. This is definitely something that we would recommend thinking about sooner rather than later as you plan your big day (some brides to be may leave it to the last minute), as things such as getting your skin glowing and feeling comfortable in your dress can often take longer than expected. Find out what Loren’s been up to below!

With exactly six months to go until the wedding I’ve been starting to worry about my love of a Chinese take-away. Since hitting 30 my metabolism is no longer what it used to be and having a swimmer as a fiancé means that carbs are very much a part of our dinnertime regime. Combine this with a desk-based job and a bout of flu, and I haven’t felt as if I’ve been looking or feeling my best of late.

It was time to stop celebrating the engagement with endless nights out on the town and to actually make sure that I fit into my wedding dress.

I’ve decided to kick start my bridal beauty plan and get body, skin and mind in shape for the big day. With several false starts over the past few weeks and a notorious falling off the wagon one Saturday brunch, I’ve enlisted the help of several apps, books and salons to get me prepped and pampered in time for the nuptials.

Not trusting my willpower when it came to weekday grocery shopping, I discovered Cook-a-Box, an amazing home-delivery service that sends all the fresh ingredients you need to make a variety of healthy meals that are delivered directly to my door, complete with nutritional information so I can punch my daily calorie intake into my phone and then marvel in the automated congratulatory message that I get at the end of the day. Meals even include pasta, quite possibly my second greatest love, among a selection of salads, meats and fish dishes. It’s great for those brides that enjoy cooking and don’t want to give up your romantic dinners a deux.

After getting my diet on track, it’s exercise time, which is proving somewhat harder. Once a fanatic gym-bunny, I’ve since been cursed by a bout of laziness and pounding the treadmill for hours on end just doesn’t hold the same appeal that it used to. So, I’ve decided to start the fitness regime off slowly with some group Yoga classes, and I’m even about to try a ‘Booty Barre’ class which combines both Pilates and the principles of ballet for what I’m told is an ‘intensive full-body work out’ by Naya Yoga & Pilates Studio, who have kindly devised me a bridal bootcamp in the lead up to the wedding itself.

Having been a bit overwhelmed with the recent big decisions of venue, photography and music, it has been a welcome respite to start thinking about bridal beauty and the colours and styles that I might want for hair and make-up for both me and my three bridesmaids. Being quite fair in my colouring, I’m looking for something fairly natural with a golden, summertime glow, and Pinterest has been my ultimate source of inspiration for this, to which I’m definitely losing many a lunch hour. I also discovered that The Nail Spa offer a ‘Bridal Beauty Concierge’ for both ‘Decisive Brides’ (definitely not me) and the ‘Bespoke Bride’ (definitely me). I hadn’t actually thought much about what colour I was going to have my nails painted, assuming it was going to be the last thing on the checklist to decide upon, but faced with so many options (I’ve now learnt my ombre from my angel French) I decided it would be rude not to start trying things out and somehow have managed to incorporate it into the monthly wedding budget!

So all in all, it’s been quite a fun month, perhaps not overly productive on paper but all of these things have really helped me to discover the excitement in wedding planning and actually start to enjoy the process, which for expat brides-to-be can sometimes be quite lonely when you’re so far away from friends and family at home. I’ll let you know how the health and fitness regime is going next month, after my Maid of Honour’s excitable visit to Dubai in a few weeks. In the meantime, if you see a small, hyperventilating blonde girl jogging around Media City, please send chocolate!

X x Loren Penney x X

Log in next month to read lorens second diary entry!