Learn To Love Your Body The Way It Is

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.

Now this whole ‘thin is in’ thing is officially ‘out’ for our family. We don’t mean we’re giving up healthy habits. We’ve learned how to accept our large physiques for their unique beauty. It simply took a major family upset for us all to learn this lesson.

It all started when our cousin and her sweetheart decided to get married. Since we live close to one another, she asked almost everyone to be in her wedding party (and we’re big in numbers as well as in body size). This joyous prospect started to sour, though, when our cousin became a bridezilla over the issue of how to lose fat to get ready for the wedding.

Our fights over diet and exercise were reaching nuclear proportions when the bride-to-be’s mother had her fill of it. She came up with a plan to save both the wedding and repair our family ties.

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.

The shop owned loaned our aunt some catalogs from manufacturers that specialize in plus size bridal attire. Our aunt knew the rest of us wouldn’t show up if it looked like we were going to go another round in the great wedding diet match, so she tricked us. She got us all over to her house by staging a show for party jewelry. While we were drooling over those beautiful sparklers, she sprang the catalogs on us.

The amazing thing is that Auntie’s scheme worked! In fact, we had a ball looking over those beautiful pictures, taking our body measurements and deciding what type of dresses looked best on which shape. Almost before we knew it, we had outfitted the bride, the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride in gorgeous gowns!

The end result was that we all got to choose a gorgeous dress for Celia and Frank’s wedding. Celia herself was one of the most beautiful brides any of us have ever seen, wearing a gown that fitted her perfectly and made her look like a queen. And it all came about because we decided to love ourselves and our bodies for the big, beautiful, fabulous women we are!