Don’t you just hate all those skinny supermodels we all see in women’s magazines? Yet people hold up these women with their abnormal bodies as paragons of beauty. Well, we’ve had it with that sort of stuff in our family. All it took was our cousin’s wedding to set us straight.

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.

The whole thing came to a head when our cousin got engaged to her high school sweetheart. We’re a close family, so she wanted as many people as possible to be in her wedding. We were beginning to think there’d be nobody left in the pews on the bride’s side. Our laughter turned sour, however, when our cousin got hold of some bridal magazines. It wasn’t long before we were fighting over how to lose fat instead of getting ready for a joyous wedding.

Finally, our aunt had had enough of her daughter turning into Bridezilla over this issue of body size. Auntie is one smart cookie, and it wasn’t long before she figured out a strategy that saved the day - and the family.

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.

Now Auntie is cunning. She knew we wouldn’t voluntarily come to another family gathering about wedding dresses, so instead she invited us over to try on party jewelry. While we were going ga-ga over all the sparklies, Auntie pulled out the catalogs and her measuring tape. We knew from the look in her eye that none of us was leaving until we’d solved this wedding dress issue.

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!