I thought putting on ‘the’ dress would be a magical moment. The moment all the rom-coms promised. My mum crying and all the “Oh, you’re such a beautiful bride” comments. But when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t feel like one at all. I just felt like me. In a slightly ill-fitting big white dress. I guess it was ‘the one’, I didn’t hate it… but wasn’t I supposed to feel something else?

With hindsight (and 18 years of distance!) I now realise that was actually the point. I wasn’t supposed to Cinderella myself into ‘a bride’, I was just supposed to feel like me.

The idea of “feeling like a bride” is everywhere. We’ve been sold it in films, magazines, and marketing campaigns since we were kids – this sense that, on your wedding day, you step into an identity. The hair. The dress. The glow. It’s supposed to be transformative. But here’s the thing: not everyone connects with it.

For some, even the word bride itself feels loaded. It can carry the weight of tradition, outdated gender expectations, and cultural baggage. You don’t have to call yourself a bride if it doesn’t feel good to you. You’re not less married, less legitimate, or less “wedding” if you choose not to use it. But it’s also not a dirty word we need to erase entirely. Many nearlyweds still love and embrace it, finding joy and pride in the term. Both are OK. Both are valid.

When I first got engaged, I assumed there’d be a moment where I “became” a bride. But between budgets, logistics, family politics, and actual life happening in the background, there wasn’t much room for that magical metamorphosis. Real life doesn’t pause for wedding planning, there are still jobs, bills, health stuff, and all the random curveballs life throws.

I started to wonder if I was missing something. Was there a secret switch everyone else found? Was I supposed to feel blissful every time I looked at my ring or ticked off a to-do list? If “being a bride” meant being pampered, carefree, and swanning through flower markets with a matcha latte, I was failing spectacularly.

This was actually the catalyst for me starting Rock n Roll Bride in the first place – because I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere I looked. In fact, if I’d embraced my ‘unbridal-ness’ sooner, I probably would have opened up a world of less traditional choices that I’d been craving all along. I know my dress would have been way less trad if I’d realised it was OK not to want to look the same, or have the same experience, as everybody else.

Here’s what I’ve since learned: there’s no universal bridal awakening. Some people get it in the dress shop. Some feel it the morning of or saying their vows. Some never feel it at all, and that’s fine too.

I fully believe that the most beautiful wedding days are the ones where you feel entirely like yourself – the same self who’s been there through every in-joke, every late-night conversation, every moment that brought you and your partner to this point. That’s the version of you your partner fell in love with. That’s the version of you they want to marry.

Your wedding doesn’t have to be a costume change in your identity. It can be you, as you are, saying yes to the life you’re building together. If that means you never once “felt like a bride”? That’s not missing out – that’s just showing up as you. And you’re pretty rad just the way you are.