Many brides-to-be take great pains and spare little expense to look as good as possible for their big day. Usually, they go on diets and exercise programs to knock off a few unwanted pounds.

But how many women -- in preparation for a wedding -- have dropped 170 pounds, thanks to stomach stapling? And then surgically remove another 20 pounds of excess skin?

When Maria Beal, a then 36-year-old Pittsburg manicurist, first inquired about a gastric bypass operation two years ago, she was mostly concerned about the weight that has vexed her most of her life. Her five foot, 5-inch frame tipped the scales at 352 pounds.

Maria’s plastic surgeon, Dennis Hurwitz, M.D., created a small pouch in her stomach that only held several ounces of food; she lost 175 pounds in a year. The operation, also known as “stomach stapling,” is one of the fastest growing areas of cosmetic surgery.

Gastric bypass is an extremely serious procedure with high rates of complications and, according to surgeons, a death rate for patients of anywhere from one-half to one percent. Thus, before any patient goes under the knife, she must go through several months of psychological testing and counseling to make sure the operation is being done for the right reasons.

But after Maria’s excess weight came off, another problem was created, one that she did not want to face with her upcoming wedding at one of the most upscale locations in Pittsburg. Her remaining problem? Massive amounts of loose hanging skin – stretched by years of being obese.

“There were days when I looked at my body and was more uncomfortable than when I was heavy,” Maria says. “But I decided I had come a long way and may as well finish the procedure.” So she took out a second mortgage for $20,000 and opted for a skin removal surgery, an operation known as “body shaping,” “body contouring” or “body lift.” For most gastric bypass patients who need body shaping, sheets of excess skin hang from their bodies like suits of overlarge clothes.

“I could not wear a sleeveless dress because I had so much loose, hanging skin on my arms and body,” Maria says. “Plus, I had problems because so much of my skin rubbed against other parts of my body.”

For Maria’s body shaping operation, Dr. Hurwitz took away excess, hanging skin from her arms, stomachs, legs, buttocks and breasts, hiding the scars as much as possible.

“You could also call the procedure, a ‘facelift for the figure,’” says Dr. Hurwitz. “The scaring created by the surgery is usually a welcome trade-off for the patient’s loose skin.”

Total recovery for a complete body lift requires four to six weeks.

The result was a beautiful wedding at the Sheraton’s Grand Ballroom featuring a lovely bride before 400 guests. It looked so good in fact, a camera crew from TV Discovery and a local television station filmed Maria’s nuptials.

The honeymoon, 12 days in Hawaii, gave Maria’s six-foot-one husband a chance to show off his new body, too.

For, inspired by a body weight of 301 and Maria’s example, he also had stomach stapling and dropped his weigh to a trim 195.

Maria, by the way, looked smashing in a blue sleeveless dress at her wedding.

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