One of my best friends is getting married and she recently pointed out to me that she and her fiance noticed how rail thin some of the girls who model wedding dresses are these days. She was particularly taken back with this designer and encouraged me to write about the intense pressure bride’s feel to stay super thin and to fit into their dress on the big day.
Many of you who are/were engaged mentioned during our Facebook threads that you receive a lot of weight-loss ads on your Facebook that are specifically geared toward brides. In fact, the pressure to be thin, lose weight and/or fit into your wedding dress is a real pressure many brides feel.
I recently saw the new movie that’s in theaters right now, Bride Wars, and as you can probably imagine, there were many lines in the movie having to do with weight, weight loss and body image. In one scene, when the brides-to-be go wedding dress shopping, Kate Hudson’s character tries on a Vera Wang gown to which the sales woman warns her (I’m paraphrasing here) “You should watch any pre-wedding weight gain. You don’t alter Vera to fit you, you alter yourself to fit Vera.” Kate Hudson’s character assures her that she had nothing to worry about because she is focused, determined and in control.
Later, when the brides-to-be begin fighting and playing mean tricks on each other, Anne Hathaway’s character begins sending Kate Hudson treats in the form of cookies, candy, etc. which Kate Hudson assumes are from her fiance. She begins snacking on the treats and despite her crazy work out schedule (she even puts a treadmill in her office), she gains five pounds and totally freaks out about it. Because after all, you don’t alter Vera to fit you!
I found this whole story line interesting as I recently watched the movie Monster-in-Law starring Jennifer Lopez whose character had a very different idea of how wedding dresses should be altered. In a scene when she meets her mother-in-law for lunch, she orders a cheeseburger (yay!) and fries for lunch to which her mother-in-law comments on how brave she must be, seeing that most brides are super concerned about fitting in to their wedding dress. And JLo’s response is perfect: “I’m going to alter the dress to fit my body, not the other way around!” A much better attitude!
I know I certainly felt a lot of pressure to be thin and fit into my dress when I was married two and a half years ago. When I went to get the dress altered, the man was very reluctant to bring it in anymore because he was afraid I was going to gain weight (much like the sales woman in Bride Wars). And much like Kate Hudson’s character, I assured him that I wasn’t planning on gaining any weight before my wedding and insisted he take the dress in like I had asked him to! (In retrospect, I probably would be reluctant to take the dress in too…it was a Size 4 for crying out loud…how much smaller was I going to get)?! I unfortunately, had not discovered cheeseburgers in those days and was a tad crazy (ok– a lot crazy)! I was incredibly concerned about my weight and making sure I didn’t look like a “fat” bride. With hundreds of eyes watching me walk down that aisle, I wanted to be noticeably thin and was willing to do almost anything to get there.
To top it all off, after writing this post, I was in a bookstore flipping through a bridal magazine in search of wedding shoes for my friend when I saw this article: “Slim Down For The Gown!”. The article detailed the top ten ways to lose weight in preparation for the big day.
So between the Facebooks ads, the super skinny bride models, exhaustive amounts of ads and magazine articles and personal pressures we feel in not wanting to be a “fat bride” and fit into our wedding dress, it’s pretty hard out there for a bride. So all of you brides…try and remember that’s it’s your day and you don’t have to fit into a Size 2 to be beautiful on your day! (Oh and you probably want to stay away from Vera dresses if your serious about body acceptance. 
Great blog!
I went to the Dr for back pain a month before I got married and he sweetly asked me if I had considered losing weight. I told him if I lost any more weight, my wedding dress wouldn’t fit!
What I’ve always found preposterous about these wedding diet ads is that they are based on the premise that the bride isn’t good enough just the way she is. And I hate that.
Granted I was married a long 18 years ago but women dieted to the point of fainting then as well. I refused to do it, my gown fit me–not the other way around. I figure everyone who was coming knew what I looked like and my husband liked bigger girls anyway. What I couldn’t believe is how many women went on a diet because of our wedding: my mother-in-law, stepmother-in-law, sister-in-law, sister, other bridesmaids. I thought (and still think) it was absurd.
My sister-in-law suffered from this kind of crazy before she got married. She actually bought her wedding dress a size too small and crash-dieted to fit into it. Talk about stress you don’t need when planning a wedding! And at her first fitting a few weeks before the wedding she still didn’t fit into it… although by the next fitting she did.
I always thought she was insane to do that – it’s much easier to take a dress in to fit if you DO lose weight than to let one out because you couldn’t starve into it in time!
Oh, lord, this all just makes me more grateful than ever that I had my wedding dress made for me.
I ordered my dress in October, and had my first fitting in January. By then, what had been too loose was too tight. I was sad. Moral of the story- allow for Feastmas and other holiday deliciousness when ordering your gown.
One of my major peeves as a soon-to-be-bride is the sizing of bridal wear. I mean, *I* don’t care what the tag says, but why do wedding gown manufacturers make their sizes so small? For instance, I am a street size 12-14, but had to order my wedding dress in an 18. I can imagine this would be hard for some women to accept. What’s the deal?
I’m a wedding planner, and I see this all the time.
One bride, K, became so obsessed with losing weight that she lost probably 15 pounds between her original alterations (2 months before the wedding) and the final ones she needed (3 weeks before the wedding).
Another bride, C, put off her wedding by a year and a half because she became pregnant, and made the mistake of buying her gown 2 sizes smaller, convinced her body would miraculously go back to her pre-pregnancy size. It didn’t, and she was very insecure in her wedding dress (which was altered to fit her)
Wow!
Great blog. I always have found it so strange when brides-to-be go crazy about losing the weight. I mean, the wedding is mainly for the bride and groom…and I’m pretty sure that if the groom didn’t like the bride much the way she looked when he proprosed, he wouldn’t have proposed! And that natural happy glow you should have on your wedding day is a better look than the “I’m starving and about to fall out from ‘exhaustion’” look that too many brides have shamelessly rocked on their special day.
I’m pretty sure that if the groom didn’t like the bride much the way she looked when he proprosed, he wouldn’t have proposed!
westwoodgirl…don’t bet on it. I married a man who admitted, on our divorce, that he really liked women a lot thinner than I was, but he’d decided to stick with me in the belief that he could ‘make’ me lose weight. As it happened, when I married him I’d dropped two dress sizes from sheer stress. My skin was pasty, I felt awful, and you know what? My weight loss didn’t even register with him. Not a blip.
Second time around, I was marrying a man whom I knew loved me as I was, and that was all that mattered. I got the dress made both times, incidentally, but my brief experience of bridal salons suggests I am not the kind of customer they like – not only fat, but one who doesn’t like ’simple and flattering’ (read: ‘makes you look so much thinner’) A-line gowns, and who won’t be persuaded into spending more than my budget. And that Vera Wang comment sums up everything that’s wrong with not just bridal, but the entire fashion world.
Westwood girl, I couldn’t have said it better. Reading this I am so grateful for my mother- it must have been her influence and upbringing but neither of my older sisters (who married in the 80s so maybe different era) spent one millisecond “dieting” before their weddings. I can’t understand the whole thing of repeated fittings anyway- I just find it unbelievable that someone’s size can change so drastically over a relatively short time.
As for me, I got married in jeans, the ones I already had that fit me great.
Good post!
Here in Canada there’s a TV show called “Bulging Brides” in which women get six weeks to slim down enough to fit into their wedding dresses. They get a trainer and a nutrition coach and inevitably, they always cheat on the diet and get punished with some (weird) work-out.
It always makes me feel kinda sad because I wonder why they would’ve bought the dress if they didn’t fit into it in the first place. I don’t want the dress to wear me when/if I ever get married! I want to wear the dress! Isn’t that what clothes–especially pretty clothes–is all about?
this reminded me of an episode of Lipstick Jungle 2.9 “Thanksgiving”. I just looked up a recap of the episode, basically:
Back at Victory’s, Dahlia brings the bride to meet with her for the dress fitting. However, to Victory’s surprise, the woman is not a slender dancer as described by her fiance. Victory thinks quickly on her feet to adjust the dress, realizing she has offended the bride. Victory is now certain this was a setup, as payback from Dahlia.
Victory is meeting with her bride Kelly again to try on the new dress she put together. She apologies for making some wrong assumptions about Kelly’s body type, but reminds her that her fiance thinks she’s the most beautiful person to him. And in the end, that is what matters; not the dress, not the wedding, but their love for each other.
I was afraid when watching it, it would turn into a stereotypical thing but it ended well. Victory’s concern for the bride’s feelings – not only feelings toward her/her work, but toward HERSELF – was genuine and she helped the woman see how beautiful she was and not to be ashamed to walk down the isle as “plus size”.
Shameless self-promotion–for an article on how dangerous pre-wedding dieting can be, see this month’s issue of Modern Bride–pg. 450. The writer takes a critical stance on the practice and the industry that supports it.