Brides who slip into their wedding dress every year - to keep slim for life!
Is it the most brilliant diet trick of all? Here come the...
I manage to get the dress on, and I post a picture on social media too. I don’t do it to gloat, but it does feel like a little personal achievement When I can still get into it each year. Without my dress as an annual gauge, it would have been easy for my weight to creep up.’ Like Caroline, Sian Stinton, 31, a senior mortgage underwriter, intends to try on her €980 wedding gown every anniversary for decades to come. determined to be as slim as possible for her wedding in May 2012, she’d slimmed and exercised her way from a size come 12 to an eight. I wanted to be in the best shape ever when all eyes would be on me,’ says Sian, who lives with her husand Gary, 39, a senior risk manager building society, and their son Edward, 17 months. After all that work, it seemed ridiculous to hang up that beautiful dress and sit back and get fat. our first anniversary, I decided One if I could fit back into it. As I asked my husband to zip it up, I inhaled as deeply as I could, sucked in my stomach and was amazed when he said: “You’ve done it!”
‘Even though it felt a little more snug than on the day, I was thrilled. I even popped into the back garden to show the neighbours over the fence.’
Last year was the only year she couldn’t do up the zip. After Edward had been born three months prematurely in September 2015, the anxiety, plus sitting for hours expressing milk, meant she was eating rather more convenience food than usual.
‘So on our wedding anniversary last year, when Edward was eight months old, it wasn’t a surprise when the zip stopped an inch short from the top.
‘I was disappointed and motivated in equal measure. I immediately cut back on chocolate — my downfall — and took more walks with the pram.’
Sian credits her dress as the reason she’s now back to a size 10. ‘If the zip goes all the way up on my anniversary this May, it will give me such a confidence boost,’ she says. ‘Although Gary humours me, he also says I look as beautiful now as I did when we got married.
‘If ever I can’t get the dress on, I’ll seriously reassess my lifestyle because it’s important to me to remain slim and — more importantly — healthy.’
Sioned Quirke urges a little caution to women who’ve lost weight before their wedding, as Sian did.
Most women lose weight before their wedding — either deliberately or through stress — so gaining a couple of pounds afterwards is natural as long as it doesn’t spiral into more, she says.
‘Trying on your wedding dress to keep check of your figure should be a positive, motivational tactic, not something that leaves you feeling negative if sometimes it’s a bit tighter,’ she adds.
ENGLISH teacher Fiona Shrubb, 28, says regularly revisiting her bridal gown rescued her from becoming a frumpy mum. Made in haste by a seamstress friend three weeks before she eloped to the famous Gretna Green, in Scotland, in March 2010 — her husband, Darren, was relocating to Germany with his job and his employer suggested they should marry if she wanted to go with him — Fiona has tried on her floor-length, size 10 silk frock every year since, or at least attempted to.
‘When I got married I was only 21, so staying slim seemed easy,’ says Fiona, who lives with Darren, 29, who works in IT, and their daughters Elizabeth, five, and Rebecca, three.
‘I thought that putting on my dress would be a nostalgic and useful exercise to repeat every March, to ensure that I didn’t gain weight.’
Her gown was put to the test come her second anniversary, four months after having her elder daughter.
‘I had gained so much weight that, at the age of 23 and just two years after my wedding, I was too fat to get it past my waist.
‘That was all the motivation I needed to stop using pregnancy as an excuse for the fact I was still wearing size 16 maternity clothes.
‘I cut out junk food and chocolate, went to an exercise class three times a week, and by our third anniversary I was a slender size 10-12 again, despite being two months pregnant.’
Pregnancy left Fiona with a wider ribcage and larger boobs, so she had the original halter-neck top altered to provide more cover when she and Darren renewed their vows in front of family and friends in May 2015.
‘We wanted to mark our fifth anniversary with our loved ones because they hadn’t been able to share our original wedding day, and there was no other dress I’d have wanted to wear,’ says Fiona.
‘I’m certain that without my dress as a benchmark, I wouldn’t have lost my baby weight — I’d just have hidden it under baggy clothes.
‘Even between anniversaries, if I suspect I’ve gained a few pounds, I put it on for motivation to lose them. My wedding dress has become the most unexpected and beautiful insurance policy against ever sliding into fat, frumpy wife territory again,’ she adds.