Saying yes to the dress can be a magical moment for a bride-to-be – but it can also come with a hefty price tag.
According to the 2025 Wedding Report by BrideBook, the average price of a wedding dress in the UK is currently £1,500, although some will pay tens or even hundreds of thousands for bespoke and couture creations.
And some brides are now forking out thousands on top of this for a last-minute replacement dress, after taking injectable medications for weight loss, like Ozempic and Mounjaro.
This is according to bridal store owner Shannon Martin, who claims the rise of weight loss jabs is causing a ‘growing issue’ for the wedding dress industry.
Shannon, who owns Dotty Bridal in Wakefield, tells Metro: ‘Dramatic body changes in a shorter period mean that dresses which once fit perfectly during fittings can suddenly require extensive, complex alterations or in some cases, cannot be adjusted enough to fit safely or beautifully, resulting in heightened stress for both parties.
‘We had an incident recently where a bride had lost three stone in the space of about 24 weeks.
‘A stone is about the equivalent of a dress size for us and a lot of the time dresses can be taken down a size or two, but three dress sizes is too drastic – it just wasn’t ever going to fit properly, so she had to buy a completely new dress.’
Shannon says the biggest problem occurs when brides start using weight loss jabs during the alteration process, a time when weight should ideally remain quite consistent.
‘Alterations start 12 weeks before the wedding, but if brides are losing weight throughout that process, six weeks later the sizes might be completely different. This means the seamstress would have to do a re-alteration, which is like starting the whole process over from scratch again.
‘It’s so costly and brides just aren’t realising this, it’s making every single alteration take weeks and weeks longer than it has to be.’
As such, Dotty Bridal’s in-house seamstress has had to make some major changes to the way she works.
‘She’s been doing her job for 36 years and she’s never had to implement terms and conditions before, but she’s had to bring them in because of this.’
And she’s not the only one – Shannon has also had to introduce a new customer policy.
‘We’ve put new measures in place within the last month, so now when a bride buys a dress, if she makes it clear to us that she’s taking weight loss medication, we have to ask her to sign a waiver that says if she loses a drastic amount of weight before her dress comes in, we can’t be held liable,’ she explains. ‘You can imagine it could cost us so much if brides are having to buy a second dress.’
Shannon continues: ‘If brides want to use weight loss medication, that’s absolutely fine, but they either need to tell us about it beforehand or start on the medication earlier, before they buy their dress.’
But getting brides to communicate openly about their weight loss journey is easier said than done, as it’s not something many feel comfortable sharing.
‘A lot of brides don’t want people to know they are taking weight loss medication, and if they’ve not made it clear to us during their appointment, it becomes really tricky because we can’t just ask them if they’re taking it – why would we ask that question if they’ve not brought that to light?’
The ‘tricky’ situation is something Shannon says she and her team are in the midst of navigating.
As such the business is having to try and find other ways ‘counteract’ the impact of Ozempic and Mounjaro.
‘We try and hold off measuring the bride until the last minute in most cases, but this does put pressure on us and on the dress designers,’ she adds.
What you need to know about weight loss jabs, at a glance:
Administered as weekly jabs, these drugs – often called GLP-1 agonists – mimic the hormones our bodies release when we eat to help diabetics manage insulin levels.
But alongside regulating blood sugar, they also help with reducing appetite (so you feel less hungry throughout the day) and increasing feelings of fullness (so you eat less when you do).
Up until June 2025, people could only access the drugs through a specialist weight loss service.
While they were oiginally developed for type 2 diabetics, GPs in England can now prescribe them to people who are clinically obese and suffering from other health problems.
But health secretary Wes Streeting has warned weight loss jabs shouldn’t be seen as a quick ‘cosmetic’ fix, saying: ‘These are serious medicines and should only be used responsibly and under medical supervision.’
Estimates suggest around 1.5 million people in the UK are already on weight loss drugs, while around 29% of the adult population in the UK is obese.
There are a number of pros and cons to taking them, with known side effects including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and constipation as well as a risk of pancreatitis and gallbladder issues.
Weight loss drugs have also been linked to symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation, as well as an increased risk of vision loss.
And more than 7,000 reports of illness associated with the drugs have been made, leading the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to publicly state they should not be used for ‘unauthorised indications such as aesthetic weight loss’.
Ayesha Bashir, a weight loss specialist and prescribing pharmacist at Chemist4U echoes Shannon’s comments about starting early when it comes to any form of weight loss.
This is important because rapid weight loss can have ill effects and often it isn’t very sustainable.
‘Starting early is essential,’ Ayesha says. ‘A healthy sustainable weight loss is typically around one to two pounds per week. The body can adapt over time, and many experience plateaus where weight loss slows.
‘Brides who begin the process sooner give themselves time to work through these stages and avoid last-minute stress.’
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