Robyn Salvi Fitness Coach & Nutritionist

Getting engaged is such an exciting time. Suddenly, there are venues to look at, dresses to try on, flowers to choose, guest lists to create and what feels like a never-ending list of decisions to make. But alongside all of that excitement, many women also start to feel a new kind of pressure: the pressure to change their body before the big day.

You might find yourself thinking, “I need to lose weight before the wedding,” or deciding that now is the time to finally get serious about your diet and exercise. Perhaps you’ve started looking at your dress and wondering how different your body could look by the time you wear it, or comparing yourself to other brides on social media.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel confident on your wedding day. However, I think there is a much healthier and more enjoyable way to approach wedding fitness than viewing your wedding date as a deadline by which you need to achieve a certain body.

As a Berkshire bride to be fitness coach, I want to help women see their wedding as an opportunity to become stronger, fitter and more confident, rather than something that requires them to shrink themselves.

Your wedding isn’t a deadline for your body

Setting yourself a fitness or body composition goal for your wedding isn’t inherently a bad thing. If losing some body fat, building muscle or improving your fitness is something you genuinely want to achieve, that’s absolutely something we can work towards.

The problem is when the wedding date creates a sense of urgency that leads you to take an extreme approach. A fixed date can make you feel as though you have a limited amount of time to completely transform your body, which can result in restrictive dieting, excessive cardio and an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise.

You don’t want to spend the six or twelve months before your wedding constantly feeling like you’re “being good” or “being bad”. You shouldn’t have to turn down every meal out, feel guilty about enjoying your hen party or spend your evenings worrying about whether you’ve done enough exercise.

Your wedding is something you’re preparing to enjoy, not something you should be punishing yourself for.

Getting stronger can be a better goal than simply getting smaller

One of the reasons I love strength training for brides-to-be is that it gives you so much more to focus on than a number on the scales.

As you train consistently, you can become stronger, improve your fitness and build muscle while developing a much better relationship with exercise. You may also see changes in your body composition along the way, but your progress doesn’t have to be defined entirely by how much you weigh.

Think about how different it would feel to reach your wedding day knowing that you’ve spent the previous year becoming stronger and healthier, rather than simply trying to get your body as small as possible.

Strength training can also help you feel more confident in your body because you’re focusing on what it can do, rather than constantly picking apart how it looks. That shift in mindset can be incredibly valuable during a period when there is already so much pressure to look perfect.

Think about how you actually want to feel on your wedding day

Your wedding day is likely to be one of the longest and most active days you’ve had in a while. You’ll be on your feet, walking around, taking photographs, greeting guests, dancing and probably doing far more steps than you would on an average day.

Being wedding-ready shouldn’t just mean looking good in your dress. It should also mean having the energy to enjoy the experience.

You want to be able to dance with your friends, enjoy your meal, stay up late celebrating and make memories without your fitness or food choices becoming something you’re constantly thinking about. When you look back at your photographs, I want you to remember how happy and excited you felt rather than remembering how anxious you were about your body.

This is why I believe your training should prepare you for the experience of your wedding, rather than simply preparing your body to look a certain way in a dress.

You don’t need to give up your social life

Wedding planning often comes with a lot of social occasions. There are hen parties, meals out, drinks with friends, family celebrations and plenty of reasons to have something to celebrate.

Trying to completely avoid these things because you’re following a strict wedding diet isn’t realistic, and it certainly isn’t necessary. Learning how to balance your nutrition while still enjoying meals out and special occasions is a much more useful skill to develop.

You can make progress while still having a social life. In fact, learning how to do exactly that is part of creating habits that will actually last.

Your nutrition doesn’t need to be perfect every day. What matters is what you do consistently over time, and a good plan should allow room for the occasional meal out, celebration or glass of wine without making you feel as though you’ve ruined everything.

Start sooner rather than going harder

One of the biggest mistakes I see with wedding fitness is leaving everything until the final few weeks. The closer the wedding gets, the more pressure there can be to increase workouts, reduce food and try to make dramatic changes quickly.

Starting earlier gives you the complete opposite experience. If you have six, twelve or even eighteen months before your wedding, you have plenty of time to make gradual changes without needing to take an extreme approach.

You can build your strength progressively, establish sustainable nutrition habits and improve your fitness while still enjoying your normal life. You also have time for the inevitable weeks when things don’t go to plan.

Some weeks will be busy. You might be travelling, have a lot of wedding appointments or simply not feel particularly motivated. That’s completely normal. Having more time means these weeks don’t have to derail your progress because you can simply get back into your routine when life settles down again.

Your wedding fitness should improve your life, not take it over

Wedding planning can already be stressful enough without adding the pressure of following a rigid fitness regime. Your training should support you during this period of your life rather than become another thing you feel guilty about.

Some weeks you might have plenty of time for your workouts, while other weeks might be filled with work, appointments, family commitments and wedding planning. Your programme needs to be flexible enough to work around that.

This is one of the biggest benefits of having a coach. Instead of feeling like you have to figure out your training and nutrition on your own, you have someone who can help you adapt your plan when life changes and keep you focused on what actually matters.

What does being “wedding ready” actually mean?

For me, being wedding ready isn’t about reaching a particular weight or achieving a completely different body. It’s about getting to your wedding day feeling strong, healthy, confident and comfortable in your own skin.

Of course, you may have aesthetic goals that are important to you, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I want those goals to sit alongside a bigger picture that includes your health, your fitness, your relationship with food and the habits you want to continue long after the wedding.

Your wedding is one day, but the habits you build in the months leading up to it can stay with you for years.

I’d much rather help you create a lifestyle that makes you feel good throughout the entire process, rather than putting yourself through a restrictive plan that finishes the moment you walk down the aisle.

Looking for a Berkshire Bride to Be Fitness Coach?

If you’re getting married in Berkshire and want support with your training and nutrition, my bride-to-be coaching is designed to help you feel stronger, fitter and more confident without relying on extreme diets or punishing workouts.

We’ll work together around your wedding date, your lifestyle and your individual goals. Whether you’d like to lose some body fat, build strength, improve your fitness or simply feel more confident in your wedding dress, we’ll create a plan that is realistic enough to fit into your life and sustainable enough to continue beyond your wedding day.

Getting wedding-ready doesn’t have to mean shrinking yourself. It can be about becoming stronger, healthier and more confident, while still enjoying the exciting months leading up to one of the biggest days of your life.