Bride Serves 'Bloat Pills,' Healthy Snacks & A Sugar-Free Wedding Cake To Guests & Defends Herself From Critics
From the sugar-free wedding cake to the anti-bloating pills as wedding favors, this bride's wedding did not go over well online.
TikTok Weddings are often full of unique choices that put the bride's personal stamp on the big event. But one bride's choices for her wedding have left many people in shock, especially when it comes to her catering and food choices.
A bride's 'what I ate on my wedding day' video has sparked a major backlash.
The wedding menu is often a way for a bride and groom to show their individuality, but the choices made by Sam Cutler, a fitness influencer known as @thefitfatale on TikTok, took things to a whole new level. Her menu choices combined with what she says she ate over the course of her wedding day has led some to wonder if there's something more worrying behind her food choices.
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The bride barely ate on her wedding day, and her wedding menu included a sugar-free wedding cake and 'bloat pills on every table.'
In the lead-up to the wedding itself, Cutler had shockingly little to eat — just a "protein smoothie" and a "green smoothie" from her favorite smoothie brand, and then some vegetables as her "maid of honor fed me some of her green salad." During the reception, she had the usual assortment of wedding food—hors d'oeuvres, salad, a main course of "salmon with lots of veggies."
But other details of her food intake started to arouse suspicion in many viewers — especially the "bloat pills" she filmed herself swallowing after her dinner. As Cutler pointed out in a follow-up video, she is "gluten- and dairy-intolerant" and many of her guests also had food sensitivities, so her wedding menu reflected this.
But those restrictions even extended to every wedding's main food event. "Our wedding cake was gluten, dairy, and sugar-free chocolate cake," Cutler narrates. She also had "a sweet table" composed of various alternative candies that were "allergen-free and low-sugar."
Cutler's seeming fixation on sugar even extended to the wedding's alcohol. While she pointed out that the wedding had a full bar for guests not concerned with such things, "I only had Kojiro's Rosé, because I know it's less than 2 grams of sugar." She also allowed herself some Moet & Chandon champagne because she says "I know that I can feel good when I'm drinking these two beverages and still enjoy myself."
As for her favorite "bloat pills," they were not just for the bride. They were available for the entire guest list, she said, "with information from the brand on who can take them, what are the restrictions, and what's actually included in them."
The bride's 'what I ate on my wedding day' video led some to accuse her of having an eating disorder.
Cutler's video almost instantly went viral as people expressed shock at her daily eating routine and what they saw as a wedding menu that bordered on an obsession with health and food restriction. Many accused Cutler of having an eating disorder like anorexia.
"LMFAO I cannot imagine having an eating disorder-themed wedding," one user commented. "Your wedding day is supposed to be enjoyable," someone else wrote. "Get well soon," another person cracked.
The "bloat pills" also took commenters by surprise, and reminded many of the bingeing-and-purging patterns associated with eating disorders like bulimia. "Not laxatives as the wedding favor," one person wrote, while another commented, "can you imagine going to a wedding and on the tables are anti-bloating gummies?! Byyyyeeeeeeeeee."
The wedding was quickly dubbed the "Almond wedding," after so many commenters made references to the online slang term "almond mom" — moms who monitor and critique their daughters' eating and encourage them toward restrictive diets. The term is named after former "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Yolanda Hadid, mother of supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid, who infamously told Gigi to "have some almonds" rather than a meal if she was hungry.
The bride called out critics of her 'what I ate on my wedding day' video for their judgmental comments.
Calling out the comment accusing her of having an "eating disorder-themed wedding," Cutler posted another follow-up video addressing those who trolled her for her wedding day menu.
"As women, we should be empowering each other to make the choices for our own individual bodies without judgment," she wrote. "Labeling someone as having mental health or body image issues for the purpose of bullying is extremely low, hurtful and harmful."
She went on to address others who may have felt attacked by the response to her wedding videos. "If you are struggling, you are not a joke." And she claimed that the response was a perfect example of how little people understand "the severity around chronic gut issues, allergies and intolerances, and the long term impact inflammation and stress have on the body and disease."
It's hard to argue that mockery and bullying are not great ways to tackle issues like eating disorders, and at the end of the day what people put in their bodies is nobody's business but their own. But it's also hard to fault people for being shocked by what they saw in Cutler's videos, especially since the medical community has not reached a consensus on Cutler's claims about issues like inflammation and other health fads.
And as several commenters pointed out, eating disorders come in more varieties than just anorexia and bulimia — it can also take the form of orthorexia, an eating disorder rooted in the obsession with eating supposedly "clean" and "right" foods.
Trolling and mockery definitely aren't the answer, and a person's diet is ultimately nobody's business but there. Still, it's not exactly surprising that Cutler's video has raised some eyebrows.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.