Remember what your gym teacher told you? (And probably your mom, too):
“Stand up straight.”
“Don’t slouch.”
Stop hunching your shoulders.”
“Head up, shoulders back.”
Even if you and mom don’t agree on everything, this bit of advice is bang on. Especially on your wedding day, good posture is really important.
While you’ve been busily planning your once-in-a-lifetime day, odds are you’ve googled all sorts of wedding and bridal blogs and websites. And chances are you’ve set eyes on many, many real-life weddings. And you can’t help but notice the images – at the altar, particularly – of brides with slumped shoulders and protruding bellies.
Argh. All that effort. The fabulous dress, the beautiful, elaborately styled hair, the perfect makeup and accessories were painstakingly chosen and paid for so that the bride could look and feel her very best for her time in the spotlight. But it’s hard to see past the poor posture.
Don’t let it happen to you. You deserve to look at your wedding pictures and video and see your most beautiful, confident self: head high, shoulders straight, rocking your big day.
If your posture isn’t the best in your everyday life, now’s the time to practice and get it right. There are plenty of websites with great advice. For instance, a story on brides.com notes, “If preventing back injuries was never reason enough, perhaps this will do the trick: Perfect posture makes you look tall, confident, photogenic and like you really did drop those last five pre-wedding pounds.”
On The Huffington Post, blogger Kate Fridkis shares a post entitled, How My Posture Messed up My Wedding Photos. In her words, “But if I could go back in time, I think I’d just whisper to myself as I started down the aisle, “Shoulders back!”
How’s that for incentive?
There’s are plenty of recommendations online, but these tips from the Mayo Clinic website fit the bill for proper standing posture
Stand straight and tall with your shoulders back.
Keep your head level and in line with your body.
Pull in your abdomen.
Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart.
Bear your weight primarily on the balls of your feet.
You’ll be glad you made the effort.
