Here Comes the (Buff) Bride

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• Published Spring 2005

Engaging a personal trainer won't just help you blow off steam; their services will also have you blowing through a lot of money. Depending on the club, a three-times-a-week personal-training package can quickly add up to as much as $20,000 in the year leading up to the wedding, an expense increasingly being factored into the bridal budget. Kraft added a personal-training column to her wedding spreadsheet when she signed up for the New York Sports Clubs' Buff Brides program that Fleming created, a $1,500 twelve-week package of twice-weekly individualized workouts that brides usually commit to as early as a year before their wedding and often repeat several times. The irony is that Kraft had been a personal trainer, who, in theory anyway, could whip herself into shape at no cost. "It's a big financial commitment, and I had to rationalize it," she says. "I was already exercising six days a week, but I'd plateaued. I had a little belly and arms and legs that needed more definition. After a trial session with a trainer in the Buff Brides program, I knew I'd be able to make a difference in my shape."

Her trainer, Adrian Brown, steered her back to the basics with high reps of squats and lunges, leap-frogging laps across the studio, hard-core plyometric jumps, and intervals of jumping jacks between every set of weight exercises. Three other days a week, Kraft clocked extra cardio time to burn more calories. The investment paid off. "In five months, I went from looking okay to wow. I lost fifteen pounds and four inches from my waist," she says. "In retrospect, I was never any good at pushing myself. But Adrian always managed to squeeze fifteen more reps out of me, and that's what made the difference."

For many who are soon-to-be-married, the time, effort, and expense of getting into peak condition are worth it because the memories of the day will last a lifetime. Kimberly Rodriguez, a 31-year-old former advertising account supervisor, had always been inactive, having seen the inside of a gym exactly twice in her life. But two years of city living - or, more specifically, of eating out and ordering in - had added twenty pounds to her size 6 frame. So after getting engaged last fall and setting a date for this summer, she signed up for the Buff Brides program. "I want to be in better shape so that when I look at my wedding pictures years from now, I fit the lean and beautiful image I always envisioned," she says. As superficial as it may seem, Cynthia Hornblower, the executive editor of Brides, confirms that the permanence of wedding photos is a huge motivator. "Brides are keenly aware that every eye will be on them, and that they will be the star of the show - and of every picture."

This hyperfocus worries experts, who are concerned about the pressure women may feel to meet an often-unattainable image. "It's great to use the engagement period as a time to make long-term nutrition and exercise improvements, especially if you didn't follow a healthy lifestyle before," says Reena Blum, an eating disorders specialist at the Renfrew Center in New York City. But, she cautions, it is possible to go overboard, and for some women, extreme dieting and exercise can evolve into an eating disorder.

Striving for unrealistic expectations often backfires on brides, though it's usually in less dangerous ways. "My experience has been that the anxiety of planning a wedding makes it hard for many women to lose weight, and a large percentage simply don't reach their goals," says Urshel. "We'll do alterations until the last minute, but because it's easier to take in a gown if the exercise program works than it is to perform expansion tricks if it didn't, we make brides sign a contract stating that they agreed to order a dress that's too small." Hornblower remembers one unfortunate bride who'd made her own figure-hugging dress that was still too tight on her wedding day: "When she kneeled at the altar, the seam ripped, exposing her back." Less frequently, it's the opposite problem that occurs. Meth recalls one celebrity she trained, who later admitted that she thought she looked too cut in her pictures.

While it's one thing to use personal training as a way to shine on your big day, it's entirely another to obsess so much that you end up limping down the aisle because of overworked glutes. "Your dress will be custom-fit to flatter you, even if you haven't lost your desired amount of weight or arrived at perfectly toned perfection," reminds Hornblower. "People really aren't judging you as much as you are judging yourself. On my wedding day, I thought my hair was too big, and I complained about it to my uncle. He told me that he hadn't noticed my hair because all he could see was my smile and how much happiness I was radiating."