The Wedding Coach



WRITER CREDIT: 
The Wedding Coach | Ginny Leavitt aims to get Holy City brides feeling as good as they look on their Big Day

In addition to her wellness packages for brides, Ginny Leavitt also has options for anyone feeling Big Day pressure, from wedding parties to moms, and grooms, too.

For all you brides who are tightly wound over your pending nuptials, pending photos, pending gatherings, and all the pressures therein, Ginny Leavitt gets it. “Social media, especially Instagram and Pinterest, have created a lot of additional pressures for women,” says the wellness coach. “We’re constantly bombarded by ‘perfect’ images that have been edited, photoshopped, cropped, posed, etcetera, and it fuels the pressure.”

To navigate it all, Ginny came up with The Healthy Bride Experience (GinnyLeavitt.com; @theginnyleavitt), a health and nutritional coaching program. Offered in stints that range from a self-study option ($147) to four-, eight-, and 16-week sessions ranging up to $2,450, the custom courses hone in on what a bride is struggling with and give her the insight and solutions for a path to sanity–and serenity. With a mix of in-person meetings, support texts and emails, and assignments, Ginny, who has a masters in exercise physiology from the University of Virginia and is a certified health coach, along with her business partner registered dietitician Anna Burleson could rival your maid of honor for having your back.

The endeavor was born when Reagan Barnes of Events by Reagan approached Ginny and asked her how to help clients struggling with wedding planning stress. “I discovered that the primary programs available to brides focused on bridal boot camps and nutrition planning,” says Ginny. “Studies suggest that 91 percent of brides have a weight-related goal, with 70 percent of them wanting to lose an average 23 pounds.” (According to a 2007 Cornell University study, she says.) “However,” she continues, “about one-third succeed in losing weight, and they only average a seven-pound loss–about one-third actually end up gaining weight.”

“When I hear those statistics,” Ginny says, “I think about the bride’s mind-set, and how disappointed, stressed, or frustrated she is. She is probably not her best, most confident self when she walks down the aisle, and that’s a travesty! A wedding day should not be filled with resentment or self-consciousness, it should be filled with joy and elation.”

“I always tell brides,” Ginny advises, “‘What’s the point of losing 20 pounds if you’re miserable, self-conscious, tired, stressed, and afraid you’ll put it all back on? I’d rather help you focus less on the number and more on feeling confident, amazing, and equipped for a healthy marriage.” Amen to that.

Image courtesy of Ginny Leavitt

The Wedding Row

December 10 2018
After connecting on Tinder (both are adamant that they were each on it for a short, short while) Charleston residents Arlene and Andrew met at a local café where she says she knew she was in trouble—...

December 7 2018
Did you know we typically save our most blockbuster weddings to post on Fridays? It’s true. So knowing that, and that this couple got engaged in Italy (on a gondola in Venice, no less), and that they...

December 6 2018
Seems like you don’t even need to be Irish to have some of their fabled luck. Take Trygve and Brooks for instance: The pair met in Columbus, Ohio, via Match.com and went on their first date on St....

December 5 2018
Any first date can be intimidating, and especially so when it’s a blind date. In fact, butterflies got to Kierstin so bad when she was set up by a friend to meet Mike, she canceled. Luckily, Kierstin...

December 4 2018
After dating for three-and-a-half years, Olivia and Sam were visiting her family in Columbia, South Carolina, for the Fourth of July when the whole crew decided a day trip to Charleston was in order...

December 3 2018
When they met up for a reunion with a group of their fellow missionaries a year after all had spent a week in Savannah, Georgia, Ashley and Brian hit it off—bigtime. That encounter launched the pair...

November 30 2018
Yes, Paula and Tyler’s Boone Hall Plantation wedding is a dream to look at. But we have to say the backstory to their day is just as inspiring. There’s just something about a couple who knows...

November 29 2018
Is wedding planning getting to you? Say hello to Charleston’s newest feel-better motivator, Ginny Leavitt, the health coach behind Healthy Bride Experience, a program that helps brides-to-be look and...