Last month, I officially tied the knot. As I look back on my wedding photos, I just can’t believe it’s already happened.

I can see the joy in my eyes, the love beaming off of my husband’s bright red face and my gown that was big enough to cover a small army.

I had stressed about feeling beautiful, or just feeling comfortable in my own skin, as I went through gown after gown. I cried after I thought I’d never last a second in that tight, beaded bodice without something going wrong.

I wished I had chosen December as my wedding month, just so I would have an excuse to bury myself in a huge, furry, winter-white cape.

I didn’t share the same worries my married friends had about fitting into their wedding gowns. I felt like no one could relate to me.

It wasn’t just me who would be squeezing into my wedding gown on that magical day; I would be accompanied by not one, but two, ostomy bags.

Running to the bathroom for any bride is a chore. It takes a very devoted bridesmaid to accompany the belle of the ball, and she has to hold up her dress in the daintiest fashion.

But, I was so self-conscious about my medical situation, I didn’t want anyone’s assistance.

I was petrified my gown might drop in the toilet, or I wouldn’t be able to get to a bathroom in time. I was also worried my medical appliances wouldn’t fit into my dress the proper way.

As a bride, I longed to feel beautiful and feminine, or a life-size Barbie Doll complete with voluptuous, womanly curves.

I felt the pressure to fit into the gowns I saw as I flipped through bridal magazines. Every photograph I looked at seemed to promote skin-tight satin and buttoned-up bodices.

How would a backless gown look with a colossal surgical scar running down my back?

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How could I wear 6-inch stilettos after going through severe neuropathy, which I experienced after being left on my right side for six months while I laid in a bed, comatose?

The more magazines I browsed, the worse I felt.

My self-contempt pushed me to the point where I started to believe the man I was marrying was annoyed with me.

After I realized the love of my life — the man who thinks I’m the sexiest when I wake up in the morning, and my hair is frizzier than a giant pom-pom — is marrying me for me, my mindset shifted.

All the people celebrating with me on my wedding day were going to be there to cheer on me and my husband. They love who we are, and they love who we are together.

Brandon is already mine; he told me he fell in love with me the day he met me. Who was I trying to impress? What was I trying to prove?

I realized I had this need to prove to myself that despite my medical circumstances, I could feel ”normal.” But, really, what is normal?

Beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, colors and circumstances, and it’s something all women deserve. And I was not going to let myself get in the way of my own happiness on my wedding day.

We may have good intentions, but as strong, passionate and beautiful women, we pressure ourselves every day. Once we tune out those internal voices, we discover a beautiful truth.

The people that matter in our lives are the people who love us for who we are.

The only expectations we need to put on ourselves are the expectations to always listen to our hearts (and our mothers).

As for my wedding dress, I had this fantasy of a tight-fitting bodice with an enormous, fairytale ballgown. I basically wanted to look like a giant wedding cake.

I had to have my dress fitted in a way that would give me some kind of figure, but with enough give for my ostomy bags, which expanded whenever I ate.

After a snide comment from a bridesmaid that I could ”always just not eat that day,” a brief pity-party and a little me-time, I told myself the dress would look as beautiful as I felt in it.

And so, with my medical situation in mind, the dressmaker and I were able to meet in the middle.

My dress was not ”skin-tight,” but it fit me in all the right places and embraced the medical bags that saved my life years ago.

Looking back on my wedding day, I cry when I see myself floating across the dance floor in that giant cake of a dress.

I look beautiful, happy and in love. And that’s because I was, and I still am.

Beautiful, happy and in love. Isn’t that what every bride-to-be dreams of? I had just spent months infinitely scrolling through Pinterest pages and ripping out magazine ads with the newest backless bridal designs. I had schlepped to department stores, sample sales, bridal shops and seamstresses, struggling to keep my balance as I stepped into this large ocean of tuile. It wasn’t my future husband I was trying to impress – considering that my white Asics are my ”dress up shoes.” It wasn’t my mother or my patient maid of honor who did everything she could to make me feel like every other bride.

But what was every other bride supposed to feel like? By who’s standards was I getting married? Was the wedding industry telling me I wasn’t ready to be married, or was I delving into a subconscious concern that I myself was hiding? Was I not ”healthy” enough to be a wife? Is love between me and my husband simply not enough?

The short story is that I did get married. And I don’t feel any different. My scars haven’t faded and my ostomies certainly haven’t disappeared. Brandon thought I looked stunning in my gown, but no more stunning than I do with my North Face fleece on. (Well, maybe a little.)

I felt beautiful in my dress and I felt married. I was a proud, glowing happy bride — in the body I have. When I first had my ostomy, I didn’t know what it was. Worse, I didn’t know anyone else who had one — I felt alien. I started feeling normal when I realized there were so many other young and fearless females in my same position. My ostomy is my quirk, my lifesaver, it is my uniqueness, and for women all over the world, it is our uniqueness.

Maybe when we pick our wedding gowns, we should focus on that — highlighting our uniqueness.

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If you aspire to gain entry to the Marc Jacobs–hosted party for the book Gloss during New York Fashion Week, do not wear anything with a (shudder) matte surface. Otherwise, you’ll be violating the dress code heard ’round social media last week. Also on the banned list: ”flat shoes and natural looks.” (The horror!) Instead, you should opt for — as the much-circulated invite called for, in small but insistent capitals — ”FUR COATS OVER LINGERIE … JERRY HALL SIDE-SWEPT HAIR … PATTI [sic] HEARST SYMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY GEAR.” Can a run on berets be far behind?

In a world of 24/7 athleisure, insisting on an exacting dress code is a cannily counterintuitive move. The party couldn’t have gotten better PR, with much of the reaction of the gleeful, isn’t-this-fabulous sort. Between the Gloss party and the Harper’s Bazaar Fashion Week extravaganza, whose invitation calls for ”fantasy evening attire,” it won’t be a dull Fashion Week. Back in the spring, Steven Klein and NARS helped pave the way for the trend when they hosted a night of NSFW revelry in a mansion in Yonkers, with partygoers wearing crocodile hats or dripping in jewels. And this fall, nightlife fashion is even getting the museum treatment with ”Fashion Underground: The World of Susanne Bartsch” at the Museum at FIT, which will surely give aspiring hosts plenty of inspiration.

The current mood is a callback to an era of over-the-top, no-holds-barred ostentation — think Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, or every night at Studio 54, where Bianca Jagger accessorized with the ultimate investment piece: a white horse. Perhaps it’s part of the pendulum swing we’ve seen away from all things ”natural” — from stark minimalism to Alessandro Michele’s embrace of magpie maximalism in fashion, from multistep ”no-makeup makeup” to elaborate contouring in beauty. Grab your false eyelashes and your fuchsia blush — artifice is in.

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Roger Padilha, co-author of Gloss and co-owner of Mao PR, is hosting the party and came up with the dress code, with plenty of input from Jacobs. The guidelines are a nod to a bygone era of playing dress-up for nights out. ”Marc and I are close friends and we are always talking about clubs like Jackie 60 that we’d go to in the ’90s,” which would host over-the-top weekly themed events like a Bettie Page fetish party or a Cyber Robot event, he recalls. ”That party encouraged guests to dress up in the different weekly themes with a hilarious dress code on their invites — and people used to follow them! The best part about going out those days was figuring out what you were going to wear and inviting your friends over beforehand while you dressed. It was like Halloween every week!” (Padilha now has his office next door to Jackie 60’s former downtown stomping grounds, and says with bemusement that where he once found himself leaving the club at 8 a.m., he’s now heading to work at the same time.)

Wild dress codes have found their way into private life as well. Danielle Prescod, accessories editor at InStyle, has been flying the flag for some time now, hosting elaborate themed parties with specific dress codes for her birthday; this year’s was Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems. ”Most of my fashion friends got SUPER into it. I mean like ’calling in looks’ into it,” she says, ”and were fully styled down to hair and makeup … My motto is always to go for it.” For fashion publicist Chris Constable, the event planner Bronson van Wyck’s Bal des Sauvages–themed 40th birthday, complete with Candice Bergen in bunny ears and Roopal Patel in an elaborate butterfly mask, set the tone. ”It changes up the more mundane cocktail/fashion event,” he says, ”and helps to show off everyone’s creativity [rather] than wearing black, or a street-style shot outside a show.”

Out columnist and nightlife chronicler Michael Musto, who threw himself a zebra-themed birthday party at El Morocco in the ’90s, recently got to relive those glory days last week at dance legend Sir Ivan’s Village People–themed party, held at his castle in Water Mill, New York. ”I went to Screaming Mimi’s and got a leather cap, so I could fit in with the swarms of people dressing up like the Village People’s macho stereotypes,” says Musto. ”I wasn’t very convincing as a leather man, but with that one simple gesture … I managed to fit in a little more, while also adding to the festive, retro air that permeated all the way down to the music and some of the VIPs.”

Meanwhile, Padilha says that he and Jacobs have been enjoying the attention from their viral hit, which quickly blossomed into memes featuring SNL’s Stefon and The Sound of Music song ”My Favorite Things.” Padilha and Jacobs have ”been texting this whole week with funny screen-grabs of all the attention the dress code has gotten,” Padilha admits. ”When I was a fashion student, I always imagined that NYFW events would be so glamorous and over-the-top and everyone would be dressed up in the most amazing clothes — I mean, it makes sense that the fashion industry would be excited to get dressed up for an occasion, right?” he adds. ”Well, nine times out of ten, it’s a bunch of models in tank tops and jeans mixed with industry people in pretty conservative chic but plain black. It’s time for us to celebrate why we got into this business in the first place — taking risks and having fun in clothes and looking amazing doing it. If we don’t, then who will?”

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