Why a Plus Size Wedding Dress Site?
How Curvy Brides Came To Be
I guess I'll remember the rest of my life the dreary gray November day Cynthia asked me to go shopping with her for a wedding dress. If I couldn't go, she said she'd have to go by herself. Her mother was chronically ill and her dad was....well, that's a story for a different website. Since I firmly believe shopping for a wedding dress is something no woman should have to do alone, I agreed to go with her.
Living close to a big city, we had a number of places we could look and Cynthia had a list of the all the stores she wanted to visit. The first three bridal boutiques we went to didn't even have plus size wedding dresses in stock.
One of the shops didn't even carry them. The other two suggested they take Cynthia's measurements and order one of the dresses they had in stock in a larger size. One salesgirl came up with the brilliant suggestion that Cynthia could hold up the dress in front of her in the mirror and "get an idea of what it would look like".
Cynthia politely thanked her and we left. The next shop we stopped at actually had a half-dozen plus size wedding dresses in their store. They looked like bead-encrusted satin car covers - shapeless and hideously designed. I didn't say anything, but I was relieved when Cynthia chose not to even try one on.
The next stop was the one that broke my heart and is responsible for the website you're on right now. We walked into a store with beautiful wedding dresses bulging out from racks that flanked the store on both sides, all the way down the entire length of the walls.
I felt hopeful that Cynthia would find the perfect dress and followed her as she headed straight to the end of the rack on the right side. My eyes flicked to the size markers as we passed each one - 0 (good grief, who wears a zero??) - 2 - 4 - 6 - 8 - then Cynthia turned to me with those soulful brown eyes and said "Maybe they're on the other side".
So we crossed the store to the end of the racks on the other side. At the very end hung a handful of wedding dresses marked simply "Plus Size". Cynthia turned over one tag after another and this time when she spoke, her voice had a tremor in it. "They're all 14 or 16. They stop at sixteen."
I spotted a salesclerk near the back of the store, fussing with jewelry and tiaras and told Cynthia "Wait here, I'll go ask if they have any more." When I asked the woman about plus size wedding gowns, she said they were at the end of the rack I'd just come from.
"But they seem to stop at size 16," I said, "We're looking for a 22, maybe a 24." To this day I still swear I heard an audible gasp as she said "Oh no, we don't carry anything THAT big." I was so stunned by her blunt rudeness that for once in my life, I couldn't think of a thing to say. As I turned, I realized Cynthia had come up behind me and apparently heard the woman's comment.
Seeing Cynthia, the salesclerk started burping out apologies - "I'm sorry...I didn't mean...I hope I didn't..." Cynthia didn't say a word as she reached into her purse, pulled out a pistol and shot the woman in the chest.
Naaaaah....it didn't really happen that way, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention, because what I'm about to say is important. And if you'll be honest with yourself, haven't you ever overheard someone's thoughtless, rude and inconsiderate remark and wanted to do exactly that?
In real life, though, we don't shoot people who embarrass and humiliate us. We do just what Cynthia really did, which was to turn and all but run out the door. I followed quickly and found her crying outside. She looked up at me and said, "Do they all think that fat women don't get married? That because we're fat nobody could ever love us enough to want to marry one of us?' I think it must have been in that moment that I decided I wanted to do something to keep this from continuing to happen to plus size women.
So I created Curvy Brides, a website dedicated to a grossly underserved segment of the bridal population - plus size brides. Here you'll find beautiful wedding dresses specially designed for the full-figured, overweight bride-to-be who, like every other bride, wants and deserves to look her mesmerizing best on her wedding day.
Curvy Brides wants to be your oasis in the bridal industry desert. We specialize in providing wedding dresses and accessories for plus size brides and we adore what we do. If you have any comments or suggestions you'd like to share, please send them to admin@curvybrides.com We respond personally to every email, so we thank you in advance for your patience.
