The first thought that popped into Jade Voight’s head after getting proposed to by her longtime beau wasn’t where her wedding would be or the color of her bridesmaids’ dresses.
It was where on her calendar the 30-year-old could book her first of many beauty appointments to get head to toe “bridal ready” for her big day.
Within weeks of getting engaged, the makeup artist scheduled an appointment to overhaul her entire skincare routine, signed up for a costly pilates membership, planned out her Botox and filler appointments for the next three to four months — and at one point even considered getting a $25,000 breast augmentation.
“This is one of the most precious moments in our lives to spend with friends and family, and we want to look and feel our best… These photos are forever. You want your kids to be like, ‘My mom was hot,’” she explained to The Post.
After crunching the numbers, Voight estimates she will spend “in the high six figures” for her dreamy 2027 Tuscan villa wedding — $62,000 of which will go towards beauty prep.
“I really just took this opportunity to be like, ‘Ok, these are the things I don’t love about myself — I want to love them about myself for my wedding.”
Voight isn’t alone in feeling this way.
Many of today’s almost-Mrs, especially New York and New Jersey ones, are upping the aesthetic ante, spending eight to 15 percent of their $49,000, $57,000 and sometimes $100,000 wedding budgets on beauty services, according to PJ’s College of Cosmetology and The Knot.
And social media might be to blame.
The #bridalglowup on TikTok has thousands of videos, titled “10 things I do everyday so I look snatched for my wedding” and “5 wedding prep must-dos to glow up,” showing engaged women taking extreme measures a year out from their wedding to look “their hottest” when standing at the altar.
When embarking on her glow-up journey, the first order of business for Voight was addressing her perpetual under-eye circles, a lifelong insecurity.
To combat them, she’s receiving Platelet-Rich Fibrin (PRF) — a $1,000 a pop treatment where one’s blood is drawn, spun, then re-injected to stimulate collagen production.
“One of my clients was doing it and she looked amazing — I didn’t even need to use concealer on her,” Voight recalled to The Post. “I was like, ‘Sign me up, I don’t care how expensive it is.”
Since her New Year’s Eve engagement, Voight has also undergone microneedling sessions on her face, neck, and hands, totaling $275 a session and swapped out her skincare products for medical-grade ones, which set her back $1,500 per refill.
She’s also been keeping up with her regular Botox and filler appointments, which cost her around $2,000 every three to four months.
To get her body into wedding-day shape, Voight shells out $300 per month for Pilates classes.
“It’s kind of like, ‘Ok girl, you have a year (now) — get with it,” joked Voight, who also tried a fat-burning peptide for $200 a month, early on in her engagement and plans to resume closer to her wedding.
The most extreme aesthetic alteration that the New Yorker considered in preparation for her wedding day was a breast augmentation — which would have run her a whopping $25,000.
“I don’t have a chest, and I was like — all these (wedding) dresses are made for girls with boobs,” said Voight. “But my friends and family talked me out of that one.”
However, she is considering pulling the plug on arm liposuction — a procedure that, if she goes through with it, will put her out $10,000.
“We’re getting married in the summertime so I’ll probably want a sleeveless dress, so I just want my arms to look really snatched. I don’t know if I’m going to do it or not, but it is a consideration,” she continued.
This pricey prep has been going on behind-the-scenes while her hubby-to-be, Ryan, is blissfully unaware.
“I don’t tell my fiancé all the things I’m doing either, because the less (he) knows the better,” Voight told The Post. “Sometimes, they don’t need to know all of our secrets…”
Alexandra Mahl Dean is all too familiar with bridal prep beauty secrets.
The law firm worker estimated that she spent $26,890 of her own money, roughly 15 to 20 percent of her $150,000 wedding budget on beauty prep, thanks to pressure from social media.
“You see everyone posting these amazing results before and after their little procedures, and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I need to get that,” she revealed to The Post.
Though the Long Island bride initially “took a lull” when it came to physically prepping for her big day, she “locked in” around September 2025 for her June 2026 wedding.
For the 29-year-old, who already kept up with her every nine months $1,100 lip filler sessions, this meant adding on monthly PRF appointments, totaling around $1,200 for four sessions.
She also underwent three sessions of microneedling to “refine her pores,” which set her back $1,800, and stayed diligent with $250 hydrafacials every three months before starting on a luxury skincare routine that cost her around $800.
To get her hair, which Mahl Dean described as “not thin but not the thickest,” wedding-ready, she used hair extensions that cost nearly $4,000.
Though the Long Islander “hates” working out, she forced herself to join a $220 a month pilates studio six months leading up to her big day.
Despite all this work and money, Mahl Dean told The Post that frankly, she finds the concept of bridal readiness to be a “rip-off.”
“I think the whole concept of getting bridal-ready is kind of overrated,” Mahl Dean admitted, adding that she paid as she went along and never set a firm beauty budget. “You’re getting all prepped for this one day, but you’re just going to look like your normal self the day after.”
Sammi Scotti disagrees.
For the 29-year-old logistics director, her priority in preparation for her August 2026 nuptials has been correcting her acne-prone skin — having spent close to $10,000 so far in customized facial treatment packages at her local med spa.
“I was like, ‘Alright — I have a year to get my skin in the best shape it’s ever been in,” Scotti told The Post.
In addition to upgrading her skincare regimen to medical-grade products, $500 for the entire set, which needs to be restocked every two to three months, Scotti also began regularly receiving $570 Botox in preparation for the wedding.
Every two month $130 hair glosses were also in order, along with monthly $140 Russian mani-pedis, $100 spray tans for her bridal shower, bachelorette and wedding, $65 brow maintenance every three weeks and $180 lymphatic drainage sessions every three weeks.
While the gym has “always been a part of (her) life,” the 29-year-old amped up her workout routine, having added hot pilates and reformer classes to the mix, totaling $600 a month.
Scotti shared that her fiancé knows ballpark numbers for her beauty costs and is “really supportive,” though he doesn’t realize his bride-to-be is spending a whopping $31,276 all on her own to get herself bridal-ready.
“My friends and family know me. They know, I’m a maintenance person,” she told The Post.
“I think my friends think I’m nuts for how much I spent on my skin, but I also think the results speak for themselves, and they know me as a person, that I’m not going to pay money unless I see value in it.”