Warning, a little bit of a ranty post ahead!
One thing I noticed at the
National Wedding Show a few weeks back was the quite intense pressure on brides to lose weight. And this really annoyed me. I’m all for ladies being healthy and happy with their bodies, don’t get me wrong I’m determined to ‘look my best’ on my (still undetermined!) wedding day. But why should I be pressured into believing that ‘my best’ is me minus five pounds?
To me, ‘best’ is glowing skin, glowing with the happiness that I’m marrying my soulmate, signing up to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. It’s a wedding dress that suits my body, curves and imperfections included. It’s about trying (and most likely failing) to keep my hair tidy. It’s about making the most about my best features, but not about changing myself.
It’s one day. And I want to look like myself on that one day.
I can see that people who are perhaps unhappy about their weight prior to getting engaged use their wedding as motivation (if I hadn’t have lost so much weight last year it would definitely work for me). I completely understand that for some women, looking their best on their big day does involve losing some weight. And that’s fine.
What I don’t agree with is the pressure from the wedding industry. My goodie bag haul from the day consisted of 3 types of diet cereal bar, an instant 97 calories Spaghetti Bolognese (which, according to my housemates, was inedibly vile), vouchers for other ‘low fat ready meals’ and a handful of meal replacement shakes. I overheard a lot of brides being told they were ‘too big’ to try on dress samples. Whilst I am small (and actually had the opposite experience – the one time I’ve tried on dresses they had to be clipped onto me), hearing something like that totally put me off even browsing the dress stalls.
Having seen what I look like in wedding dresses, I know that I don’t want to lose any more weight – turns out I’m more petite than I thought! I do want to tone up, something I’ve said for a while, but am I going to turn down a burger lunch for the sake of a wedding dress? Hell no!
Maybe, having always been sensitive about my weight and perhaps a little obsessive over weight loss, I’ve been over emotional about this. I’ve never seen any bride look ‘fat’ – the focus is always on how gorgeously happy they look. I do believe that, in industries including weddings, too much pressure is put on women to be thinner…and I’m not a fan of it.
Do you think there’s too much pressure in society for ‘weight loss’ and perfect bodies?
