When Fatty Got Married

Me with Nicky Rockets (can't believe I had no tattoos on my arm then)

Last weekend me and my lovely husband celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary.
This isn't the blog version of Steve Wrights love songs so I wont be too mushy but needless to say its been a fantastic ten years and I'm a very happy lady.
As I thought about my wedding day it made me realise how far I had come in my journey of self acceptance about my size. I was quite confident and happy when I got hitched but certain parts of the process shook even my cast iron self belief. These included:

No Plus Size Wedding Frocks To try On

Looking to a future where you can try on a sample dress over a size 10

Not a single wedding dress shop I visited had one sample size that fitted (I was a size 20 when I got hitched) this meant every dress I tried on including the one I eventually opted for was basically far too small and a slightly dingy piece of muslin like material was pinned at the back so I could get an "idea" of what it would look like.
 I paid a £1000 for my dress ten years ago at the wedding dress chain Pronuptia and as I opted for  a corseted strapless number this meant that until I actually tried on my completed dress two weeks before the big day I had no idea how it would really look.
In actual fact when I first tried it on it was huge and I looked like a tank. It was as if the dressmakers just couldn't see that although my body was fat it did actually go in and out. I had to fight to get alterations made and was actually told that it would look "weird" Nice customer service eh. As I'm sure you will agree by these photos I didn't look weird, I looked nice, and as if I had a waist.
I believe things are much better in the wedding dress world now and certainly had I known then what I know now I would have gone to a few more independent retailers but it made what should have been the best dress buying experience of my life pretty miserable.

I couldn't get a strapless bra in my size for love nor money

Throwing the bouquet and flashing my boobies

Nowadays ladies over a D cup are fairly well looked after but ten years ago it was an entirely different story. Having paid a grand for a wedding dress with no straps I then spent months and months fruitlessly looking for a bra to hold my bangers up. I went everywhere. Eventually I went to Foners in Liverpool and had to have a bra made which cost a fortune. The stress of finding my wedding underwear still haunts me. I became like a woman possessed phoning up lingerie manufactures and even when working in America just before the big day spending my one day off not sightseeing but pounding around malls desperate for a white strapless bra.Who knew such a simple item would be so tricky.

The photographer obviously thought I wasn't very attractive (he was wrong-I looked awesome)

Taking our vows-we were both crying and look rather manic

We were rather lazy about our choice of wedding photographer as working in the media as we did back then we knew our friends would take some great shots (which they did) so we booked a local photographer to record the service and do the group shots. Its ironic how a few years later my husband would become a wedding photographer because we learnt some good lessons about how not to treat a bride. When we first went to meet the photographer he told me rather gleefully that he had photographed a "big girl" recently and then proceeded to show me lots of pictures of this one lady. It was as if he felt photographing a fat chick required special skills. I think in his misguided way he was trying to be nice but it made me feel that he viewed my size as a visual disability he had to overcome.Nowadays I would have thanked the man and  left but even ten years ago fat shaming and rudeness about size and shape was part of the everyday landscape so I not only said nothing I booked him!

It was a very happy day

The day itself was amazing and I loved every moment of it so I am in no way saying these incidents spoilt a thing because they didn't, rather they tell the story of how even in ten years we have come  along way and wedding service providers are slowly coming around to the notion of the plus sized pound. Hurrah!

Happy ten Year Anniversary

We had this great poem by John Cooper Clarke as one of our readings (my great friend Becky did the honours) and it still sums up how we feel about each other:

I wanna be yours

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don't care
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
you'll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that's how deep is my devotion

So here's to another ten years of marital bliss. I'd like to say my style has evolved massively but looking at these pics I seem to have always favoured big hair, false eyelashes and lots of lipstick. I was just a lot blonder and less tattooed!

For more of my general musings check out my Big fat thoughts page Ive got more rabbit than Sainsburys

Have you seen my latest vlog "5 Big Myths About Fattys"

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