In bridal stores across the world, solicitous sales assistants are being trained to ask a new, blunt question: \u201cAre you planning on losing a drastic amount of weight?\u201d<\/p>\n
Wedding<\/a> season\u2019s new disruptor is semaglutide, now used by 10% of engaged couples, according to a survey by the wedding planning platform Zola. In the same survey, 42% of couples said the ubiquity of GLP-1s has made them feel they should \u201clook a certain way\u201d for their wedding.<\/p>\n GLP-1 weight loss is not limited to women, but bridal designers are feeling the impact most keenly. Traditional wedding gowns are complex, expensive garments. In her 16 years as a wedding dress designer, says Rebecca Schoneveld<\/a>, who runs a \u201cpurposefully size inclusive\u201d business, a lot of brides would tell her: \u201c\u2018I\u2019m trying on the dress now, but I\u2019m hoping to lose weight\u2019 \u2013 and in the past, actually, that would not happen. Or they would lose an inch or three inches.\u201d The difference in the past year or two is that \u201cthe weight loss has been dramatic\u201d.<\/p>\n A bride-to-be tries on a wedding dress, 1946. Photograph: Hulton Deutsch\/Corbis\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Historically, says Kelly Cook, CEO of David\u2019s Bridal, which has about 200 US stores, the wedding planning timeline was about 18 months, with the bride choosing her dress \u201cin month four, five or six\u201d. At the end of last year, Cook noticed a \u201csignificant shift\u201d. Many brides were coming in early to try on dresses, asking anxious questions about weight loss and alterations, but they were \u201cafraid to purchase it\u201d, and, when they did, they did so months later.<\/p>\n David\u2019s Bridal responded by launching a fit guarantee, \u201cwhich says no matter what the dress, we\u2019re going to guarantee that it fits up until the wedding\u201d \u2013 and if that means swapping for another dress, so be it, Cook says. David\u2019s Bridal, which sells \u201croughly 2m units a year across all our categories\u201d, many of which range from $500 to $2,000, can afford to offer such a service. For the small businesses creating fewer, intricate, bespoke gowns, such a guarantee would mean financial ruin.<\/p>\n Many stores are instead asking brides to give them a guarantee that they\u2019ll pay for the dress whether it fits on the wedding day or not. Though some bridal designers have used similar contracts for years, they are becoming more widespread, and in some cases targeted for the Ozempic age. Jarithza Carlson, Atlanta-based domestic production director of US wedding dress designer Anne Barge<\/a>, has updated contracts to say: \u201cIf you are planning to drastically lose weight, please let our retail team know. And, essentially, you may be required to purchase another gown if the dress is more than three dress sizes bigger\u201d than the bride. Sales staff are also trained to bring the issue up early, aiming \u201cto catch potential issues before gowns are even manufactured\u201d.<\/p>\n When a dress is several sizes too big, says alterations specialist Melissa Lynn Oddo<\/a>, it \u201cmay not be suited for alterations\u201d \u2013 or alterations could easily cost $1,500, because \u201cwhat we\u2019re really doing is creating a custom piece, taking apart every single seam and proportioning it down\u201d.<\/p>\n double quotation markSkinny culture and cosmetic surgery is so much more normalizedRebecca Schoneveld<\/p>\n Susan Ruddie, owner of the Baltimore and Brooklyn-based alterations specialists, The Wedding Dresser<\/a>, used to tell brides that some weight loss would not be a problem: \u201cUnless you lose 10 pounds from one breast, it\u2019s not going to affect the overall fit.\u201d This is no longer true. Recently, for example, \u201cwe had one bride who had lost so much weight, we needed to take her dress in more than 20in\u201d. Schoneveld had a similar situation of a client who went from a bridal size 16 to a bridal size six in six months, and another who \u201cwouldn\u2019t admit that she was on medicine, and it was always our fault that the dress was too big\u201d. Many more ask for tweaks to the design to accommodate post-weight-loss loose skin, says Ruddie, \u201cso we lower the back into a V-shape, which hides the extra skin better than a straight strapless back; we have a whole variety of drapes and sleeves that go over people\u2019s arms\u201d.<\/p>\n Schoneveld says that corsets that lace up in the back, of the kind popular in the late 90s, have made a bit of a comeback in the semaglutide era, in part because \u201cyou have adjustability on the day\u201d \u2013 though she also thinks the trend ties into a general tendency towards \u201cmore body manipulation\u201d in fashion, aligning with a time when \u201cskinny culture and cosmetic surgery is so much more normalized\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing in a bridal sitting room is like a therapy session,\u201d says Schoneveld. \u201cWorking with so many brides over the years, there\u2019s maybe one in 100 who doesn\u2019t have negative thoughts about their body.\u201d Broadly speaking, however, says Schoneveld, \u201cmy larger clients tend to have a much healthier mindset about their bodies \u2013 they\u2019re accepting of themselves, whereas I notice my smaller clients struggle with: do I look perfect from every angle?\u201d<\/p>\n A woman tries on a wedding gown with the help of her friends at Filene\u2019s Basement department store in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2006. Photograph: Matt Moyer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Laura was prescribed a semaglutide compound for health reasons in early October 2024, a few weeks before she got engaged. \u201cIt was really medically driven \u2013 in the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n When she went dress shopping in December, she told the bridal shop: \u201cI have no idea what I\u2019m going to look like for the wedding, which was in September.\u201d She had to sign waivers, the gist of which were: \u201cWe\u2019ll do what you want, it\u2019s against our advice, and you just have to sign extra paperwork saying that you\u2019re taking responsibility for it.\u201d<\/p>\n She lost 50lb (22.6kg) between starting dress shopping and getting her dress, more than she expected, and she ended up having to contact the dress designer directly to get hold of a smaller size. She was relieved to learn that the dress had not gone into production and would order the size down, if she signed more paperwork.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was nerve-racking,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought about it all the time. The production times are so long on a proper dress, it\u2019s not like you can just hop out and grab something else \u2013 and it\u2019s such a big, expensive purchase.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Olin Johnston\u2019s daughter is fitted for a wedding gown, 1957. Photograph: Don Cravens\/Getty Images<\/p>\n She used ChatGPT to track her weight loss and measurements and predict what size she would be by the time the dress arrived. \u201cThe funny thing is, it nailed it. When I got the dress it needed zero alterations, aside from the hem.\u201d In the months after that, though, she lost more weight. \u201cAt my last meeting with the seamstress, two or three weeks ahead of time, she was like, \u2018Please, just don\u2019t lose another pound. This is a strapless gown, it will start to fall off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Though she wishes the timing had been different, Laura is evangelical about semaglutide: as has been anecdotally reported by many other users, she reports additional, unexpected benefits, including a reduction in longstanding spinal pain.<\/p>\n As for her wedding day: \u201cI can\u2019t lie. Yes, I\u2019m happier having pictures in the dress in the body that I\u2019m in today than the body I was in two years ago,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I do also feel that\u2019s kind of a bummer, and I don\u2019t think I would have tried [semaglutide] had it not been for all of the medical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Not everyone is using GLP-1s for such dramatic weight loss. Currently only Wegovy and Zepbound-branded GLP1-s are FDA approved specifically for weight loss, usually for people with a BMI more than 30; many doctors caution against its use by those of a \u201cnormal\u201d BMI. Still, \u201cI\u2019m seeing this with girls who are ordered a size six and then come in a size zero. It\u2019s across the board for all sizes,\u201d says Carlson.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the already slim brides, who use semaglutide to lose five or 10lb, who New York City-based plastic surgeon Dr Darren Smith says he sees most often. Semaglutide has \u201ctransformed my patient mix\u201d, he says. Before GLP1s, pre-wedding plastic surgery requests tended towards arm and chin liposuction. In the last two years, so many of the brides he sees have lost so much weight that lipo is moot. Instead, skin laxity procedures are booming and he is doing \u201ca huge amount of small volume breast augmentations\u201d, for brides who have \u201clost volume\u201d in places they did not predict. Ideally this is something brides would do three months before their dress fitting, but he gets last-minute requests from Ozempic brides \u201call the time\u201d. If they want to go ahead, he has to warn them that they will look as though they are wearing \u201can aggressive push up bra\u201d. Generally, he believes, semaglutide use has further normalized cosmetic surgery. Many of those using it come to him saying: \u201cWow, I never thought I\u2019d find myself in a plastic surgeon\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n Though there are still some lone voices crying out for wedding day body positivity (influencer Molly Scullion<\/a>, for example, recently went viral for joyfully refusing to fixate on her weight in the run-up to her wedding), semaglutides are being heavily marketed to brides of all sizes \u2013 in social media adverts fed to slim, wedding-planning women<\/a> or by spas and wellness companies selling specific GLP-1 bridal packages. Pure Med Spa in Chicago, for example, offers a \u201ctailored weight-loss and aesthetic treatment package\u201d called Semaglutide for Brides. New York-based nutritionists Eat Shed Glow offer a comprehensive guide to \u201cGLP-1 for Your Wedding\u201d. In India, where Mounjaro is the country\u2019s best-selling drug, New Delhi wellness clinic Klarity Skin Clinic offers packages for the \u201cMounjaro \u200bbride\u201d. Already, says Schoneveld, some plus-sized brides she works with seem to feel they have to explain if they have chosen not to go on GLP1s. A future where all brides report similar feelings seems uncomfortably close.<\/p>\n