I misplaced 9 stone to be an ideal ‘Kate Middleton’ bride

The moment I laid eyes on it, I knew it was the one. Cut from a delicate cream silk, it was full-skirted, sleeveless and looked like a dress a princess would wear. The Princess of Wales to be precise.

It wasn’t a replica of Kate’s iconic gown from 2011 but something about its nipped-in shape recalled that demure simplicity. I’d never been one of those girls who dreamed of her wedding day, but I was excited for the bridal shop appointment with my sister-in-law.

I felt a small thrill of pride when I tried my perfect gown on for the first time, and the shop assistant gave a round of applause. It was when I came to order it in a far smaller size that her face fell. She looked at me with a knowing ‘I’ve heard it all before’ expression. Politely, she advised me to order in my current size 22 and alter it when I picked it up three months before the big day ‘if necessary’.

Her reaction — that betrayed her belief I’d never lose the weight — unlocked something in me. I have always been competitive and even though I had never been on a diet before, I was determined to prove her wrong.

I’d show her I could be the size 10, fairytale Kate Middleton-esque bride — the right kind of bride — no matter what I looked like at that moment. But that determination ­spiralled into ­something far darker, turning into a sinister obsession with food that saw me eating fewer than 300 calories a day, ­exercising until I could barely stand and ­constantly lying to my loved ones.

Yes, I did lose the weight — 9st in less than a year — but it was only because I’d do ­anything to be thin.

‘Thinspiration’ for brides like me is everywhere, such as under the hashtag #wedshred on Instagram and TikTok. It’s easy to think that if all the grinning brides in before and after photos can do it, so can I.

Never mind the fact that the Princess of Wales has a naturally slim figure, while I had always been big. Never mind that my fiance had met and fallen in love with me while I was curvy, or that he didn’t think I needed to lose weight. 

Such was the damage wrought on my mind and body by this destructive crash plan that, even once I’d reached my target and ­succeeded walking down the aisle a size 10, I still wasn’t happy with my body.

The day itself passed in a tense blur, with not a ­morsel of the wedding breakfast ­passing my lips. And six years later, the scars remain.

While I’ve never been diagnosed with ­anorexia, I certainly developed disordered eating. And it continued long after the ­wedding — leading me to keep dieting even during pregnancy.

Today I still monitor every bite of food that passes my lips. I have to be very firm with myself to resist the temptation to skip a meal. And when I look in the mirror, I force myself to focus on positives; it’s all too easy to berate myself.

Although not many brides admit to the bitter aftermath of their ­wedding dress diets, I suspect I am far from alone. Indeed a recent ­survey of more than 300 brides-to-be found as many as 91 per cent attempt to lose weight in the run-up to their big day.

And psychologist Genevieve Nowicki, who led the study reported in the journal Eating Behaviours, said: ‘An important finding from our study is that brides-to-be showed dissatisfaction with their bodies at similar levels to patients with ­diagnosed clinical eating ­disorders, highlighting the severity of these issues and the need to raise awareness.

‘Pressure from family can often be in the form of comments praising weight loss or family members ­making comments about their own appearance that are then ­internalised by brides.’

Ironically, before my own wedding, I’d always been confident and happy with my figure. But the intense ­scrutiny of a bride’s appearance can do strange things to you.

From the dress to your ­waistline to your shoes, hair and make-up, it can feel like everything about you will be critiqued. And then there’s all the photographs — I’d always hated being in front of the camera.

As a teenager, I’d developed a taste for junk food and decided that I wasn’t interested in exercise. I arrived at university a size 16, but living off a carb-heavy diet of pasta and creamy sauces meant I left a size 20. These eating habits persisted into my 20s when I started my career as an early years teacher.

But thanks, in part, to the body positivity movement, which made figures like mine more mainstream, I was the most confident despite being the biggest among my friends.

I was a size 20 and in my mid-20s when I met my husband, who appreciated my fuller figure. We’d been together for three years when he proposed in July 2017, which wasn’t a huge surprise as I was pregnant.

Our daughter was born a month later and I was 30 when we started planning our wedding at the end of October 2018. We booked our hotel venue for the following year, and that’s when it dawned on me that all eyes would be on me.

Then weighing 19st and a size 22, I dreaded the prospect of waddling down the aisle looking like one of those old-fashioned doll toilet roll holders. But it was the dress ­consultant’s doubtful, slightly ­scornful expression that solidified these fears.

When I got home, I gave myself a year to lose the weight and signed up to my local slimming club, part of a national chain.

When I arrived at the church hall for the first meeting, I was so ­nervous I came in clutching my two-month-old daughter in her car seat to hide my figure. As I stood on the scales in front of 30 people, a black cloud descended.

The slimming consultant ­whispered to me that I was 19st, reassuring me that I’d never see those numbers on the scales again. I felt intense shame at being the heaviest member in my age category.

The consultant calculated my BMI — showing I was morbidly obese — and said that based on my height of 5ft 6in, I should set a ­target weight of 10st.

This meant I had 9st to lose in 11 months, the equivalent of almost 3lb a week. I trusted her as the expert, and duly paid my £5.95 a week to join the club.

I left the meeting with an eating plan booklet containing a list of restricted foods and strict ­measurements for meals. When I arrived home I swept all the ‘wrong’ foods, like crisps, sugary cereals and ready meals, into the bin.

I was encouraged to write down everything I ate in my booklet, which I’d eagerly hand in for ­‘marking’ at each meeting. My ­consultant used a green highlighter for ‘good’ foods and a pink one for ‘sinful’ — her words.

I lost between 4-6lb a week in the first few months. I glowed with pride whenever I earned the accolade of ‘Slimmer of the Week’ and a round of applause. But my new-found sense of shame was only growing.

It was three months into my ­mission to be the perfect bride, ­having lost 3st, that things took a frightening turn. I became obsessed with ­monitoring my size on the ­bathroom scales and embarked on a punishing routine of food restriction and excessive exercise.

I joined a gym, and on days when I felt I’d done badly I’d punish myself with arduous runs, sometimes twice a day, and restrict my calorie intake to just 300. All this while looking after a young baby.

I looked for reasons not to eat, planning appointments to clash with my lunch hour, or going to the gym after work then claiming to be too tired to eat. I was ­constantly living on my nerves and thinking about how to ­control my eating.

By spring I was weaning my daughter from formula milk to food, so I could busy myself with getting her to eat, meaning no one realised I hadn’t touched my own meals.

There were times I’d go for 24 hours without eating a single thing. Hunger pangs became a badge of honour.

Six months in, I’d lost 6st, ­dropping to a size 16. Everyone — from friends to colleagues — congratulated me on my weight loss, telling me they envied my figure and wanted to join my ­slimming club.

At the weekly weigh-ins, I was held up as a shining example. But when I was asked to share my secret, I refused. What could I say? On a normal day, I’d skip lunch and breakfast, drinking diet coke and tea instead, before an evening meal of chicken and vegetables with my fiance.

By this point, I was absolutely exhausted. It was incredibly hard to look after my daughter while feeling so depleted. Yet not for one second did I contemplate ­giving up the diet. I knew I wanted to look perfect on our big day.

My fiance was losing weight too, thanks to the calorie-­controlled meals I was cooking from scratch. As we were only together during the evenings post-work, though, he had no idea how little I was eating.

When I went to pick up my ­wedding gown three months before the big day, I had dropped from a size 22 to a 14.

This time a different assistant helped me into the dress and it was a shock for both of us to see it on me. I was drowning in it. I was proud of my weight loss and it was all the more stark to see how the dress swamped me.

I found a seamstress to ­completely alter and re-size the dress. There was so much excess fabric I had a bridesmaid dress made for my daughter, who was then almost one.

I reached my target weight of 10st and a size 10 two weeks before the wedding. I had worked for so long, dreaming of the ­elation I’d feel when I finally saw the result on the scales.

But the rate at which I’d lost weight meant I had excess skin all over my body and I was ­anaemic-looking. I had no energy. Yes, I was going to be a slim bride, but at what cost? While I felt happy in the moment walking down the aisle to my ­husband, my wedding dress had become an embodiment of my months of misery.

On reflection I didn’t enjoy the day. While I had met my goal weight, the feeling of being that Kate Middleton bride still eluded me.

At the reception dinner, with 150 pairs of eyes on me at the top table, I couldn’t bring myself to touch the three-course meal, instead drinking strategically timed glasses of wine. When my husband’s aunt noticed I hadn’t eaten anything, I reassured her I’d filled up on canapes.

I must have looked miserable, at least some of the time. But none of the guests ­questioned my dramatic weight loss. Instead, I was congratulated on my ‘achievement’. I was told how beautiful I looked and that I was a perfect bride.

NHS guidelines recommend that a healthy rate of weight loss is 1-2lb a week; some weeks I’d lost triple that.

People failed to see that losing 9st in the space of a year isn’t ­normal and certainly shouldn’t be celebrated.

Towards the end of the evening, someone accidentally knocked a glass of red wine over the skirt of my dress. For any other bride, it would have been a total disaster; I didn’t even flinch.

When we returned from our honeymoon, rather than have the dress professionally cleaned, I threw it away. It sounds drastic but it reminded me of what I’d put myself through.

But while I was able to rid myself of my wedding dress, the disordered eating demons were here to stay.

For another three years, I ­carried on going to the slimming club to maintain my weight. When I was pregnant a second time in 2018, I gained just 1st 9lb — the first time I had gained 4½st.

Throughout the pregnancy, I’d check what my baby daughter should weigh in utero and adjust my diet accordingly, eating strictly only what was required and used a vitamin supplement so I didn’t put on any unnecessary weight.

Needless to say, this goes against every possible form of medical advice, and could have been seriously dangerous — for me and the baby.

Yet none of the doctors and nurses I had contact with spoke to me about my weight, perhaps I didn’t look skinny enough for them to consider I could have a problem with food.

Two weeks after my second daughter was born by C-section, I returned to my slimming club. Just a month later, I’d lost any weight I’d gained during ­pregnancy. And still, I didn’t see myself as unhealthy.

That realisation came only when my eldest daughter, aged two, offered me a bite of her biscuit.

Before I could respond, she quickly withdrew her hand, chiding herself: ‘Mummy says no! Mummy doesn’t eat biscuits.’

That moment finally made me face up to reality. I could not let my daughters grow up with such a deeply unhealthy view of food.

Seeing the direct impact my eating habits were having on them gave me the courage I needed to face up to what I was doing. From that point on, I was careful with my language around food in front of them.

Today I still weigh 10st and sadly I doubt I’ll ever have ­a ­positive body image again. I use weights to keep my figure in check and still panic when I look at myself, because I can always see where I can improve.

In 2020 I paid £8,500 for a tummy tuck to get rid of all the excess skin. It was an arduous, painful experience and the recovery took 12 weeks, but it was worth it to gain a bit more confidence.

People say I’ve never looked better but in reality I’ve never felt worse about myself. I am more in control of my restrictive eating habits but I’m not kidding myself, it is a daily battle to control it.

Society’s obsession with the mantra ‘big is bad, thin is good’ means that larger women like me, who resort to dangerous extremes to lose weight behind closed doors, are offered unadulterated praise for slimming down. The same behaviour exhibited by thinner women would be met with grave concern.

While it’s not healthy to be a size 22, there are shades of grey when it comes to disordered eating. It’s not just thin people with a low BMI who are affected.

I put myself through hell to be a ‘perfect’ bride. Now, I just wish I’d been a chubbier, happier one.

As told to Samantha Brick