You’d never know it from looking at fashion magazines, but more than half of American women wear size 14 or larger clothes. Yet even though we big beautiful gals are in the majority, we still starve ourselves trying to look like something we’re not.
The thing is, our family’s physical heritage tends to run large. We’re descended from sturdy peasant farmer stock – tall men with broad shoulders and tall women with big hips. This is great when you’re plowing fields and having lots of babies to be farm hands, but it can be a disadvantage in our time of highly processed foods and much less physical labor.
Anyway, about six months ago our cousin Celia got engaged. Since we’re a close family, Celia wanted nearly everyone to be in the wedding party. The trouble started when she began looking through popular bridal magazines. Before we knew it, we were constantly arguing about how to lose fat so that everybody could get supermodel-slim for the wedding. It wasn’t a happy time.
Our family fights over losing weight finally reached such a point that Celia and her fiance Frank (who’s no beanpole guy, either) thought they might have to elope because nobody was talking to anybody else. That’s when Celia’s mother, Aunt Marge, got into the act in a great way.
One of Auntie’s friends sells bridal dresses and evening gowns in town. She told our aunt that the question of body size often comes when choosing bridal gowns. Instead of trying to argue anymore, though, Auntie’s friend loaned her a couple of catalogs that she uses to order dresses for her shop. These catalogs were full of beautiful, full-color photos that showed how a plus size wedding dress could fit well and look stunning at the same time.
Then Marge got all the ladies in the family together on the pretext of a gathering to look at party jewelry. We looked at jewelry all right, but she also showed everyone her friend’s catalog with those stunning bridal gowns in them. Celia couldn’t believe her eyes, and neither could the rest of us.
Before long, the bride-to-be and her now-reconciled bridesmaids were squealing with delightover the pictures of gorgeous dresses. We got so excited that our aunt had to get out her measuring tape so we could measure each other for one of those fabulous dresses.
The great wedding dress battle had a happy ending, just like a good romance should. The bride and her attendants walked proudly down the church aisle in wedding gowns that fitted us perfectly and made us all look like fairy tale princesses (large economy size, of course). Our aunt’s scheme really saved the wedding day.
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