Here's The Skinny On Big, Beautiful Fashions

How many times have we all been tempted to rip out the pictures of ultrathin models from fashion magazine? Yet more than half the women in America wear plus-size clothes size 14 or larger. Still, it took a family crisis for us to realize how to love the bodies we were born with.

Our family genotype - that means the way our genes make us out to be - runs toward larger-than-average sizes. Both the men and women in our family tend to be tall and large in stature. We think it comes from all those farmers in our family tree!

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 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.

Marge talked to one of her friends who runs a bridal shop in a large Midwestern city. Marge's friend told her that she sees this problem all the time, and that she knew just how to fix it. The bridal shop owner loaned Marge one of her dress catalogs that showed how beautiful and becoming a plus size wedding dress could be. She also sent along some information on how to determine body types and what styles of gowns look best on which body types.

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.

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 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!