Bride Body

The pressure to be your hottest self on the big day

When I began researching for this blog post, I was curious to see what other Substack writers had said about the pressure to be your most beautiful, thinnest self on your wedding day. To my surprise, there was a striking silence—at least from the female perspective.

I did come across one thoughtful piece from a man reflecting on his discomfort while anticipating his fitting for his wedding suit. He spoke candidly about the grief of gaining a few pounds over the years and his body changing as a result. However, his focus was less about societal expectations and more about personal change. As I reflected on his article, I felt that a deeper dive into the unique, and often crushing, cultural pressure placed on engaged women to look flawless was missing not only from his piece but from a larger conversation in general.

There’s no doubt that men face body image struggles as a result of cultural pressure to look a certain way. But the stakes are rarely the same. From an early age, men are often taught that their worth lies in achievement—career success, athleticism, intellect. For women, worth is far more entangled with appearance and relationships. We’re socialized to be desirable and devoted—to be good wives, daughters, mothers, and friends, all while looking effortless and beautiful doing it.

That’s not to say women don’t value ambition or that men don’t care about how they look. Of course they do. But the pressure on women to perform beauty, especially in a moment as photographed and symbolic as a wedding day, is disproportionate.

And women feel it. Viscerally.

I want so badly to push back against this pressure as I prepare for my own wedding. I mean I’m a therapist for God’s sake! I spend four days a week sitting with clients navigating body image struggles, disordered eating, and the brutal weight of diet culture. I know the tools. The reframes. The insights. I know how to gently challenge the inner critic and explore the deeper meanings beneath the desire to be thin. And yet, when it comes to myself, it’s a lot harder to put those tools into practice. Especially when, if I’m being totally honest, part of me just really wants to look amazing on my wedding day.

And if one more person tells me to “just give myself grace,” I might actually lose it.

So how am I going to navigate my own body image during a time when the pressure to be thin is arguably at its peak? The truth is: I don’t fully know.

What I do know is that my desire to look fit and feel confident isn’t something I pulled out of thin air. It’s been shaped and sharpened by a lifetime of messaging about what women should look like, especially when they're center stage on their wedding day. And while this is a frustrating reality, I can’t help but wonder if the desire to look a certain way on my wedding day is necessarily wrong or invalid.

There’s so much nuance in this dilemma, and I’m doing my best to steer clear of black-and-white thinking as I explore it. It’s not as simple as “just love yourself” or “just lose the weight.” I don’t believe that wanting to feel good in my skin on my wedding day is inherently harmful. It becomes harmful when that desire is rooted in shame, deprivation, or self-punishment—when I start entertaining the idea of skipping meals or turning down plans with friends just to control every bite of food. There’s a big difference between making slow changes to feel stronger and more energized versus chasing an unattainable ideal.

So truthfully, I’m still figuring out how I want to relate to my body during this incredibly joyful and anxiety-inducing season of life. For now, I’m letting that be enough.

Thank you for reading!

As a little teaser for Monday’s upcoming post—I’m diving into why I don’t align with the body positivity movement (gasp!). Writing this piece reminded me of the reasons I find body positivity not only unhelpful, but at times, actively harmful. Stay tuned.