ELLEN, journalist and anti-athlete: In the bad old days, when I was getting married, several of my mother's friends had showers for me that involved kitchen themes. There was lots of emphasis on what food to serve at the wedding and the showers and lots of talk on how to prepare food for my husband-to-be. I remember lots of cake and Mimosas (champagne and orange juice).

I would have loved a spa shower or a fitness shower that gave me the tools to keep my weight and my stress at bay. I’m wondering what such a shower would look like in these liberating times. Mothers and bridesmaids in white robes at a spa drinking iced Perrier and pondering abs routines? A picnic at the top of a hiking trail with watercress sandwich ingredients pulled from the local creek? A gift basket that includes sessions with a personal trainer or a video of one of the better workout tapes? A year’s supply of bottled water delivered to your home?

Click on Add your own below to tell me what you would like as a dream fitness shower. It may give someone an idea of how to give you a treat. You can even post your wish under a fake name and then nonchalantly suggest that your bridesmaids check out the comments at Girlfriends this week! The best idea will earn you a $25 gift certificate to a local spa.

June 30, I will be married 19 years. It seems just like yesterday I was dolled up in my Princess Di knockoff gown.

The pre-wedding planning was one of the most stressful times in my life. I wish, as a bride, I knew Barbara and Heather. I could have used a strict regimen and supportive friends pushing me toward exercise and drinking lots of water. In my time, we handled stress by not eating and by drinking way too much alcohol. This just added to the toll of pretending nothing was troubling me as I slogged through my 40-plus-hour-a-week job and tried to help my mother plan a party for 300 of our best friends (76 were first cousins from each side of the aisle) while I lived several hours from the location of my wedding.

I imagine it’s not all that different for brides these days. In fact, it may be harder with the economy in a slump and the ever-increasing distance most of us live from our moms and dads, if they even live in the same place.

I do remember my wedding as one of the best days of my life. It was the first time I had done something that my mother approved of, and I was thrilled to have found a guy who could put up with my wild dreams of being a career woman. (In those days, in the Midwest, that was not exactly mainstream.) I was also looking forward to having children and pioneering a new kind of family in which both of us would be equal partners.

Just thinking of that time makes me feel jubilant. And while we’ve had our ups and downs, and my life has fallen somewhat short of those wild dreams, I am glad to have done the wedding up right. I hope all you brides out there set up your day so that you can feel like me two decades later.

Within six weeks of my Princess Di Day, our first child was on her way, and as that annoying commercial says, “Children change everything.” (I can hear every parent of a teenager saying a collective “Duh” whenever I watch that.) I am looking forward to my daughers’ wedding days several years from now, and I hope I can use my own advice and Heather and Barbara’s friendship to make sure I send them off to chase their own dreams with a healthy and fit headset. Posted May 28, 2003 03:48 AM