My Night At The Interntional Plus Size Awards

Its been a few weeks since I attended the Plus Size Awards and finally I can write about it. The event had an exclusive deal with a newspaper so I had to hang fire until they had published, well they have now so here we go.
I was so excited when I learnt I had been nominated for the "Best Plus Size Blogger Award" unlike a lot of other awards of this type this one is chosen by readers so the fact that enough people voted for me in the early rounds that I made the final five was such a massive compliment and for those of you who took the time out to vote-thank you so much.
I was in a really fortunate position as the other contenders for the award are all amazing bloggers whose blogs I not only read and follow but who are all really fabulous women. So while I was of course hoping to win I knew if I didn't I wasn't going to have to wear that fake smile that losers at the Oscars have.

Me and baba ready for the Awards

To be honest i was probably more excited at the chance to go to a glamorous black tie event full of gorgeous plus size hotties. I've never been to anything like that before so my anticipation was very high.
I had also been asked to present the award for best Accessories brand so knew I would be going on stage-yikes!
Choosing what to wear was such a fun part of the process and as you all know I went for the AX Paris Mermaid dress by Simply Be (who kindly dressed both me and my little girl on the night) and I spent much of the week before buying accessories, getting my hair done and generally getting myself red carpet ready.

I always enjoy getting ready as much as the event itself

The awards was held at the Connault hotel in London's Convent garden which is just gorgeous. We arrived in  a cab and there was a red carpet and people taking our photo it felt very glitzy.

Having a glass of champers with Becky Bebe

Catching up with Becky Bebe and Rivkie from Slink magazine

We went straight through to the champagne reception for a few glasses of fizz where I met some of my fellow plus size lovelies including Becky from the Ramblings of Mrs Bebe Sharon from Big fat Betty Patty Difusa whose plus size tights brand Miss Difusa were sponsoring the event and the lovely Rivkie Baum who is editor of Slink magazine all these fantastic girls sat on my table-how lucky was I!

A table of plus size gorgeousness

The room the awards and pageant were held in was simply breathtaking, huge chandeliers, beautifully decorated it was really ornate and grand, I loved it. 

Lusting after the chandaliers

The event opened with a catwalk show by the finalists in the Miss Plus size international pageant which formed part of the night. It was lovely to see glamorous plus size women strutting their stuff and feeling amazing. 

The Plus Size Pagent

One of the beautiful pagent finalists

The awards were presented by Jeff Brazier and Maria bates who did a fine job and before long they started handing out the gongs. 

Jeff Brazier and Maria Bates were on presenting duty

By now you will know that I didn't win the Best blogger award. It went to the fab Georgina Hornes blog Fuller Figure, Fuller Bust a lady whose pin up styling and encyclopedic knowledge about lingerie has quite rightly really put her blog on the map over the last year-well done George.

Accepting an award on behalf of Accesorize

I may have had a few glasses of champers at this point

Stumbling off

Pretending the gong was mine (I did a lot of that-sorry everyone, blame the fizz)

Me and baba 

I accepted the best accessories award on behalf of Accessorize which was quite funny as my table was at the back and I couldn't hear them announcing it and then had to dash (not easy in glittery high heels and a body con dress) to collect it. I milked my moment on stage as long as I could and then stumbled off to eat my dinner.

Oh Katie do bore off

It was such a lavish celebration of fabulous fatties and overall a lovely twinkly night. I've debated whether to even discuss the fact that Katie Hopkins attended as really do feel she has had far too much attention already but it does feel a bit like ignoring the elephant in the room (which could well be a Katie Hopkins "joke") 
Ms Hopkins was the winner of the "cream cake award which is basically a bit like a Razzie except in this case she was being singled out as having been particularly negative towards plus size women. 
No doubt keen to keep her twitter following entertained she decided to come to the event to collect her award in person and actually her speech (which I couldn't really hear all of) was fairly tame and she appeared to be laughing at herself as much as anyone else, she was also accompanied by her manager who is a woman and you guessed it-plus size. 
Where it all went a bit downhill was when she started tweeting daft fat bashing things notably about the ladies taking part in the pageant. 
Modelling swimwear at an event such as this would be nerve wracking for anyone and remember these girls are not professional models so it was particularly poor of her and illustrated just what a bully she is and why she had won the award in the first place. 
I think moving forward maybe this award should either be dropped or the winner not invited. These kinds of amazing body positive events should be very much a "safe" place and that silly woman did set a slightly sour note momentarily. However her bigotry couldn't repress the energy and loveliness of all the women taking part which in itself is the biggest two fingers to the failed Apprentice contestant who only this week lost her job on This Morning for her unacceptable behaviour (making Scottish jokes on the day of the tragic helicopter crash and mocking the name of a dangerously ill child on the X factor I believe are her latest "hilarious" targets-what a class act)

Gemma Collins won Best Designer

Moving on swiftly the lovely Lisa Riley won Best achievement which after her stint on Strictly come dancing which really helped change a lot of peoples perceptions about fat people not being graceful or fit was well deserved. Asos curve won best online retailer which was great and Gemma Collins won Best designer. There was some moaning about this afterwards but whether or not Gemma sits with a sketchpad and pen or just collaborates with professionals on her collection I have to say I have really loved a lot of the clothes she has brought out and in fact one of her dresses was my absolute fave at the Plus North catwalk shows so I was quite happy. I also briefly met her and she looked fantastic and was very nice.

Gemma Collins looking very glam

The fab Lisa Riley

I wouldn't want to be negative about any of the winners but I was quite sad not to see Plus North pick up the best event award. It was such an amazing achievement and I had been certain they would waltz off with that-bad luck ladies, I'm sure next year it will be yours.

Raising a glass to all the glamorous plus size hotties who attended

Small niggles aside it was a great event,the food was delicious (as a vegetarian I am often woefully under catered for at these kind of events but it was all yummy) the clothes were amazing and the venue was awesome.I'm just sad I missed the desert as I had to take my little girl home as she was lagging.
Vive Le Plus Size Ladies-proving that glamour and class is not the domain of any one dress size and whilst we are giving out awards I just wanted to say thankyou to my fantastic husband Nicky Rockets, I think he was more excited about me being nominated for this award than I was and was so proud of me.

Love this photo as it was taken by our 7 year old daughter

He also spent all night taking pictures for my blog rather than just being able to relax which as he is a professional photography is a bit of a busmans holiday-so big up Mr Rockets x 
All photos by Nicky Rockets

Simply Be £75 Giveaway
This week I'm running an amazing giveaway!

One lucky reader will win £75 to spend at Simply be this week. To enter go to Mondays post for details.

I'm having a cheeky little blog sale so if you are still stuck for a party dress hop on over and grab yourself a bargain.

Capturing the Curve Workshops

In other body confidence news I'm planning two plus size pin up workshops next years, one in Manchester and one in London. A day to revel in your curvy beauty, be made over myself and Lilly Von Pink and have your very own photoshoot in a safe empowering enviroment-All the details can be found here

Limited Edition Killer Curves Tee Shirts (including the brand new Curverella and the zombies design) Now On Sale

My brand new Killer Curve tee Shirts cost £13 and are available to buy from here having curves never looked so good!

All content (text, photos and other) are the property of Betty Pamper (aka Perelandra Beedles) unless otherwise stated. Please refrain from copying any material without recognition of the author and a link to the source on this blog

I love to read your comments. Im not always the quickest at replying to them but rest assured I read every one. For quick responses twitter and facebook are probably better.Thanks so much for checking in. It makes my day.