Whether you choose an intricate updo or long, romantic waves for your wedding day hairstyle, lush, thick locks are a must. But the side effects of wedding planning—from added stress to dietary tweaks—can work against your vision by causing a type of hair thinning called telogen effluvium, says trichologist Bridgette Hill. This form of thinning (and, subsequently, hair loss) generally isn't associated with any other symptoms—like a rash, itching, or flaking—and typically occurs at the top of someone's head, making it easy to diagnose, manage, and treat.1 Still, regardless of how "simple" it is to address this scalp issue, the last thing you want to do is deal with your hair falling out right before walking down the aisle—which is why we put together a guide to help you understand this condition and rectify it ahead of the big day.

Here, Hill shares three of the most common reasons your hair may shed in the weeks and months before your wedding—plus, we provide tips on how to prevent and counteract hair loss before saying "I do." Read on for everything you need to know.

Reasons Why Your Hair Is Falling Out Before Your Wedding—And How to Stop It

Experiencing hair loss before your wedding isn't fun—but there are ways to ensure your locks are healthy before walking down the aisle, especially if you understand the root of the problem.

Nutritional Changes

For many brides-to-be, wedding planning includes an increased focus on their physical appearance: boosting their workout routine, losing weight, or adding supplements are all common elements of pre-wedding preparation. However, these changes can throw your body’s nutritional balance out of whack, says Hill, as you end up missing some essential vitamins or over-supplementing others—especially vitamin D, vitamin A, iron, and ferritin.

“Hair is a non-essential tissue—our vital organs don’t need it for survival,” she says. This means that if your body is short on key nutrients, it will stop fueling your hair follicles first. “For those vitamins, there is a proven range that the body must be at so there’s no competition between the body trying to get the stores for the vital organs and competing with developing a hair fiber,” Hill adds.

As such, if you think your thinning hair is due to nutritional changes, Hill recommends connecting with a nutritionist, holistic practitioner, or primary care physician who can run lab work that identifies any vitamin or nutrient deficiencies and help you design a balanced diet and supplement plan. 

Stress

Adding the stress of wedding planning—including family dynamics, decision fatigue, and budget worries—to your already full life can be a shortcut toward hair loss. “Stress hormones are communicators,” says Hill. While they are helpful in their initial trigger of your fight-or-flight response, a constant sense of anxiety disrupts your body’s balance of cortisol and other hormones; other side effects, like anxiety, a lack of sleep, or changes in your eating habits—all stress responses—compound the problem. As your body tries to recalibrate itself, it will send its resources away from your scalp. “When the body is in a healing phase, it’s always going to take from the hair,” says Hill. “Hair is going to be the first thing to go.” 

With that in mind, the same de-stressing techniques that allow you to reclaim a sense of peace in other areas of your life can help your hair loss, too. Mindfulness, exercise, reading, hobbies—any practices that put you in “your most present moment” should be “as primary as what we eat for dinner,” says Hill. Add a calming scalp massage, too: “Just touch your head,” Hill advises. “People don’t even recognize how much stress we hold in our heads. You get a benefit to your scalp, and it’s beneficial to long-term hair care.”

Hormonal Changes

For women, hair changes caused by hormonal factors occur in every phase of life, including pre- and post-partum periods. Changing your hormonal contraceptives before or after your wedding can trigger a shift in both the thickness and texture, says Hill. “Any rapid decrease or increase in birth control is going to be a major shock to the body,” she adds. “A good relationship with your OB-GYN will mean having these conversations as you start making those decisions as you’re building your family.”

Additional Ways to Prevent and Counteract Hair Loss Before Your Wedding

While addressing the underlying issues that contribute to hair loss is a critical first step, you can also use serums and topical products to moisturize your scalp and encourage follicle production. We also love Omi Hair Growth Peptides Gummies (they work by supporting hair follicle health at the cellular level, and taste great). That being said, be realistic about how close you are to your wedding and how much change you can make, says Hill; hair has its own cycle of growth, and you may not see major changes in a matter of weeks. Some studies have also shown that the dermatological benefits of red light therapy may apply to the scalp and hair too, notes Hill (though the technology hasn’t been perfected yet).

Though hair loss and thinning of any kind can be jarring, realizing that you're dealing with this unexpected issue before your wedding has one silver lining, shares Hill: It will help you prepare for a lifetime of healthy locks. “The upside is: how great that you get to make this connection with your body and know when your body is going through these things,” she says. When you face hair loss in the future, “you know what some of these triggers can be, and you can know how to solve them. It’s adding some really great tools into your toolbox for your overall beauty and hair wellness," Hill explains.