FOR almost a year, Kimberly Chustz spent every spare moment she had planning the biggest day of her life — the wedding dress, the cake, the bridesmaids’ bouquets and the colour of the reception napkins. Then one day she woke up married, and discovered a big hole in her life.

“Once I got back from the honeymoon, I kind of felt myself being sad,” she said. “I’d been consumed with this event for 11 months. Now what do I do with my time?”

The bigger the wedding, the harder the return to ordinary routines, according to American psychologists treating increasing numbers of recent brides suffering from post-wedding depression (PWD).

The vogue for ever more expensive and elaborate ceremonies appears to be creating a generation of brides-in-therapy who never recover from the loss of attention that accompanied their wedding planning.

“Once the veil and dress are off — boom! It’s over,” warned one disappointed bride in an online discussion of PWD. “They may as well have a big voice come on the loudspeaker intoning, ‘Please deposit your tiara in the appropriate receptacle and return back to the slimy rock crevice from which you came, Mrs Smith’.”

While miserable newlyweds are scarcely a novelty, psychologists blame the explosive growth of the US wedding industry for inflated pressures on brides to organise the biggest, most exciting and most memorable wedding day their families can afford — or in many cases, cannot afford.

“Post-bridal depression is what happens when women throw themselves into the planning and become consumed with their list of to-dos,” said Sheryl Paul, a therapist and author of The Conscious Bride. “Then after the wedding is over, they crash.”

According to statistics released last month by The Wedding Report, a US industry research group, Americans will spend £32.8 billion on almost 2.5m weddings this year, at an average cost of £14,400 per wedding. In more than three-quarters, the bride and groom will pay part of the costs.

As the weddings have grown in scale and glamour — sometimes involving mass departures for ceremonies at beachside mansions in Barbados or aboard rented yachts — so the planning has become equally demanding. Many would-be brides turn into so-called Bridezillas — demanding monsters who howl with rage whenever their plans for lavender tablecloths are thwarted.

Yet once the honeymoon is over, Bridezillas often get the sniffles. “You spend at least a year micro-focusing on one day, a day that is supposed to be the ‘happiest, most wonderful’ day of your life,” noted a contributor to Brides.com, a leading weddings website.

“You’re expected to look your most beautiful and to be the centre of attention. It’s no wonder a lot of girls feel like some part of them has died afterwards.”

According to Paula Hall, a relationship psychotherapist, one in 10 new brides are so disturbed by the anti-climax of married life that they end up clinically depressed.

“There is an ingrained belief that this is supposed to be the best time in a person’s life and people don’t want to let go of the fantasy,” she said.

The chatrooms of bridal websites have become busy with women consoling each other about the post-wedding adjustment to married life.

“I felt lost and unimportant after it was all over,” said a contributor to TheNest.com, where the issue pops up in chatrooms. “I’m getting better though, I just needed a new project. I want to be a dog trainer.”

If the chatrooms are any guide, husbands are rarely useful in helping their new wives to adjust, prompting one bride to suggest that the best solution was to dump the first husband and have another wedding.

Although many women suggest that having a child might fill the void, few newlyweds seem to regard that as a solution. Chustz had a baby but still felt a sense of loss. “Am I silly or has anyone else out there experienced this?” she asked.

Many psychologists believe that couples should spend as much time discussing potential problems as they do planning their weddings.

“A lot of trouble in the first year of marriage is because people did not do the emotional preparation for this transition,” said Paul. “Instead of talking about the roles of husband and wife, we end up focusing on the wedding planning.”

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