The intense pressure to look good on their wedding day is leading some women to take extreme measures — including laxatives, breast implants and rhinoplasty.

“Things I did in preparation for my wedding included running, starving myself, having facials, a fake tan, my hair cut and dyed - I still have no idea why I dyed it - a manicure, a pedicure and my hair done," says Charlotte MacInnes, recalling her wedding three years ago. All of which might sound ridiculously excessive, but when it comes to your average wedding preparation is actually pretty modest.

As wedding season approaches, another crop of brides is currently immersed in a torturous process of self-improvement. It is hardly breaking news that women face daily pressure to look good, but most of the time this pressure is a background hum: mildly annoying for some, extremely so for others, but a hum, nonetheless. Then a woman decides to get married. A day looms on which she knows that she will be photographed, videotaped and scrutinised by everyone present. A slight paranoia ensues. And into this window of insecurity marauds an entire industry intent on feeding off the natural desire to look your best. That background hum increases in pitch and intensity, until it is a screaming chorus of, "But will your nail varnish match the flowers?"

A recent report in Newsweek magazine highlighted the lengths that US women are going to in preparation for their wedding day, including teeth-straightening, Botox and extreme dieting. It cited academic research that found that 70 per cent of US women who were engaged were trying to lose more than 20 lb in time for their wedding, and a further 20 per cent were closely monitoring their weight.  Of those who were trying to lose weight, more than 20 per cent were taking an approach that the researchers perceived as "extreme", including downing laxatives, vomiting after meals and adopting a new-found smoking habit as a way to stave off hunger pangs.

A bridal body image survey for You & Your Wedding magazine reveals that 91 per cent of respondents intend to lose weight for their wedding, 7 per cent are planning to have rhinoplasty, 8 per cent are opting for breast enlargements and 5 per cent are preparing for a breast reduction. The subject of serious weight-loss crops up all over the internet wedding forums. One woman talks of starting a diet 18 months before her wedding; another has bought a wedding dress three sizes too small as motivation; another is living on 1,000 calories a day - half the recommended intake - for six months, and feels that she is "letting herself down" by having a cup of tea, due to the calorie content of the milk. Another forum member explains that although she is happy with her size and has thyroid problems that make extreme dieting a bad idea, she has stopped eating during the day after colleagues wondered aloud why she wasn't buckling down to a weight-loss regime.

Competitive Wedding  Syndrome
Many women report having been insulted on visits to bridal shops. "One dressmaker made a comment about the size of my hips and another about the size of my breasts", says one, while another was told, "Well, of course, you will be losing weight before the big day," even though the dress she was trying on fitted perfectly. And this type of bullying and condescension is also applied to women's tastes. "Every time I was about to say, 'I really like this'," one woman tells me, "they'd say, 'Oh, that doesn't flatter your figure.'" A survey last year coined the phrase "Competitive Wedding Syndrome" after 60 per cent of respondents said they wanted guests to think their wedding was "the best they had ever been to". But it doesn't seem that brides are experiencing smug delight at improving their appearance: only panic at what's expected of them.

The Guardian