The Light Touch / Here comes the dolls

Brides and grooms everywhere are doing it: not just tying the knot, but having pre-wedding plastic surgery making them look like gorgeous, artificial dolls.

An article in The New York Times' Styles section featured the story of a couple, both of whom had nose jobs. The bride also threw in a bit of liposuction for her cheeks, while the groom, a chin implant to make it look square. After all, who wants a rounded-chin groom? Topping it off, he had his teeth whitened so his smile would be as dazzling-white as his bride's gown.

"It's something we both wanted to do," the bride announced, saying that she loved her fiancé with his crooked nose, but adding: "Now that he's hot, I love him even more."

Let's face it, who wants to look typically bridal when "hot" is an option?

Groom Greg (my friend's son) confessed he was shocked when his bride greeted him at the altar looking like a completely different person.

"I wasn't sure I was getting the same girl," he confessed to me later, when I, a wedding guest, commented on how different "Jane" looked.

"She wanted to surprise me," Greg said. "And she did. She had a pre-wedding makeover including a breast augmentation that resulted in having to have a last-minute gown reconstruction to accommodate her new figure."

This new trend got me thinking: if a little rearranging here, a shot of Restyline there, can insure love-ever-after, why not go for it? At least that's what bride Wendy's mom, Annie, had to say when, not only Wendy went under the knife a few months before her wedding, but Annie did, as well.

"I looked in the mirror one morning," Annie said, "and what I saw shocked me. I no longer looked young."

"That's because you're not," I said. "Why can't you accept the aging process gracefully? You happen to look terrific."

That may be true, but "terrific" wasn't good enough. Several months before Wendy's wedding, Annie had a complete facelift, tummy tuck and tossed in a Brazilian butt lift to complete the package.

"When I walked down the aisle, all eyes were upon me," Annie said. "I was nipped and tucked from front to rear. I looked and felt as beautiful as my daughter."

Gone are the days when the mothers of brides and grooms all wore beige. Today, these women are competing to look as stunning as their offspring. And if that isn't bad enough, one mother I know wore white to her own daughter's wedding and renewed her vows at the same ceremony. Talk about one-upmanship.

"It was a deal too good to resist," Elaine said. "A two-for-one lump-sum wedding, which was quite sweet. When the groom slipped the ring on Amanda's finger, my Harry followed suit by placing a wedding band on my finger, too. I was a bride all over again."

"Didn't your daughter mind?" I asked, "infringing on her day?"

"We considered it a bonding experience," Elaine said. "I will admit, the mother-of-the-groom didn't see it that way, but she's easily rattled by everything."

Pre-wedding makeovers have now become the rage. Along with reserving the hotel for the reception, the bride now books a consultation with her plastic surgeon. Operating rooms are as busy as bridal salons. It used to be that a bride would awaken on her wedding day and all she needed to worry about was her hair and makeup. That has now taken a back seat to major overhauls.

My friend Judy and I were discussing this over lunch. "As far as I'm concerned," Judy said, "plastic surgery should be part of a divorce agreement not a pre-wedding requisite. Isn't it better to end the marriage on an `up' note, and go out into the world as a stunning divorcee?"

She had a point: coming into a marriage, the bride has already snagged a husband, but leaving the marriage, she is once again a single woman where drop-dead gorgeous really counts.

Apparently, lots of women agree. One gal made her soon-to-be divorced husband include a complete makeover as part of the settlement. She left the marriage looking tired and downtrodden. She emerged a month later, refreshed and rejuvenated, having been "rearranged' by one of New York's finest.

"What happened to good, old-fashioned values?" my friend Susan wants to know.

"They reinvented themselves inside the doctor's office," I said.

"Having good values is one thing, being valued is another," so said 30-year old bride Samantha, who looked gorgeous even before she went under the knife. "When I tried on wedding gowns, I just didn't feel right," she said. "My rear end was sticking out too far, and my tummy had an ugly, little bulge. I just wasn't bridal material."

And so, Samantha hot footed it over to a plastic surgeon, who took inches off her tush, got rid of the tummy bulge and allowed Samantha to shimmy down the aisle like a model on a runway, looking pert if not just a tad, plastic.

Men are getting into the act, too. Like the groom with the chin implant, another guy thought it was time to get rid of his beer belly. "I've been a couch potato all my life," he said. "Now that I'm getting married, my fiancée wants me to turn the other cheek."

That's exactly what he did. Brian turned off the sports channel, rose from the couch, and had his cheeks liposuctioned and lifted both on his face and his rear. He threw in a hair implant plus a little repair on his deviated septum, resulting in a nose that could adorn the cover of GQ. The Brian I knew fell to the wayside while the new Brian looked sexy and svelte. His bride was ecstatic. She had a bit of cosmetic enhancement, too, so much so that when she smiled I was afraid her face might break. But, they did make a stunning couple even if they didn't look entirely real.

The bridal gown industry agrees that it's made all the difference. One bridal consultant said that pre-wedding plastic surgery has increased her sales.

"Brides who have `had some work' have a new lease of life. As a result, they don't mind spending more on a gown figuring since they've already dropped a bundle on the surgery, a few more bucks won't even make a dent."

"Boobs," my husband says, "they're all a bunch of boobs."

"In more ways than one," I say.

Westporter Judith Marks-White shares her humorous views every Wednesday in the Westport News. She can be reached via e-mail at joodth@snet.net or at www.judithmarks-white.com