Words from a Former Bride

Women in everyday life face an immense amount of pressure from society to conform to a certain standard; including how to look, how to dress, and how to act. Although the ideals have changed throughout history, there has always been a certain focus on how women are "supposed" to look. Corsets, bustles, girdles, panniers, and crinolines once changed how women's body shapes appeared and allowed them to reach for that elusive "ideal". Now women attempt to change their shape through dieting, exercise, and Spanx. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to look and feel your best and to be strong and healthy, but when a quest to fit a societal ideal becomes extreme and possibly dangerous, we are dealing with bigger issues.


Never is societal pressure more intense for a woman than when her nuptials are in the not-too-distant future. As a semi-recent bride myself, I know how intense these pressures can often be. If you don't plan on adhering to a drastic weight loss plan (whether you need to or not), people often look shocked. Reality shows abound with women desperate to be made over before their weddings. From intense weight loss to competitions for plastic surgery, the message is constantly: if you don't fit the ideal, you aren't a real bride.


One of latest extremes that brides are taking on to change thier shape involve dieting with feeding tubes. This forces them to withstand extremely low calorie ingestion (around 800 calories usually). Instead of enjoying their engagement period they are fatigued, dedicated to carrying a feeding tube around like victim of a severe illness, and focused on that one goal: losing those last few pounds.


Your future spouse fell in love with who YOU are. If they truly love and care about you; the number on that scale doesn't matter. If it does, then there are some bigger issues that are at stake. I have, honestly, never seen an ugly bride. It's not because of their weight loss, exercise regime, face of makeup, lovely accessories, or pretty dresses. The ladies who get married in a casual outfit with no makeup are just as stunning brides as those with professional makeup artists and elaborately beaded dresses worth thousands. What is it that makes them so beautiful? It is the happiness and joy radiating out of them as they join their chosen partner on the pathway to the next phase of their relationship. And that, my friend, is true bridal beauty.

Love ...or obsession with self?

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-William Shakespeare

A new wedding-themed reality show has hit the airways folks. In many ways, however, it has nothing really to do with weddings...or even love for that matter. I'm not that big into reality shows, myself, but I find the premise of this one disturbing. Women compete for the chance to have plastic surgery and a big humdinger of a wedding. The sad part is, these are all beautiful women, willing to submit to major body changes for a chance at a overblown wedding.

Aren't we as women told enough that we have to measure up to an unrealistic standard, without telling a group of beautiful women on national television that they need surgical assistance to prep for a day when they should feel totally accepted by the love of their lives exactly as who they really are? Weddings should be about two people who love each other and celebrating with family and friends, not about trying to reach some ideal by your wedding date.

What do you think?

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