I'm Launching A Year-Long Digital Memoir About Becoming A Plus-Size Bride

I was told I would never be a bride because of my body size. Now I'm celebrating (and documenting) a love that's larger than life!

I have to start with the impetus for this project: the fact that I was told that I would never be a bride because I am “too fat” for love - and for the specific public declaration of love that is marriage.

In roughly three weeks I’ll be launching a year-long memoir project called Fat Girl Gets Married. Why three weeks? Because October starts the 52-week countdown to my wedding! I am so thrilled to be embarking on this project I even asked Substack if they’d want to partner with me and throw a launch party in San Francisco in the Fall, and they said YES!

This intimate project is about chronicling my experience - week by week - as a fat-positive plus-size bride at this exact moment in history: when there’s never been a better time to be a plus-size bride (in my opinion) from the perspective of culture, politics and fashion.

I knew from the start I wanted to archive every, single moment of this journey - and I also knew I wanted to share it.

FGGM promises weekly coverage of everything that’s going into this year: mood boards, engagement photos, ring shopping, song recs that summarize the week, snaps from zoom calls, bits of audio, and whatever else I can possibly digitize to make the experience as up-close, personal and scrapbooky as humanly possible. I’ll cover nitty gritty brass tacks detail - like designing the dress, picking a wedding planner, the conversations that happen ahead of taking our engagement photos - for my fellow list-lovers/executive-function-fans, people who love gratuitous wedding planning details, and others who are going through this process right now I’ll also share thoughtful essays and contemplations on dating and falling in love as a fat woman of color, inevitable disagreements between my partner and me, being a late bloomer (Hi, I’m 41), drafts of my vows, and working through enough family trauma to even be able to love someone (woof).

I thought about turning this project into a book, but realized I didn’t want to wait two or three years for it to come out and I didn’t want to deal with the limitations of a static medium. I wanted to share the joy of this experience - with photos, videos and audio - in real-time with this beloved community and anyone who loves a good story about weddings, fat girls, love, picking the perfect cake, and fat girls in love picking the perfect cake at weddings - with zero diets, weight-loss or shapewear. Promise! I also didn’t want to let the publishing industry - which, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t the most fat-friendly place in the world - to set the price of my work. I wanted to.

That means this project will only be available to paid subscribers. Paid subscribers will get an invitation to the launch party in San Francisco this Fall + 100% exclusive access to this serialized 52-week journey! If you’re already a paid subscriber, you don’t have to do anything; you’ll automatically get every FGGM update (and invitation to the launch) sent to your inbox.

So, stay tuned, get some jordan almonds and your favorite pair of sockies ready and join me for a year of fat girl nuptial bliss!

xox,

Virgie

---

What now?

(1) If you’re already a paid subscriber, you don’t have to do anything; you’ll automatically get every FGGM update sent to your inbox.

(2) Know someone who’d love FGGM?

(3) If you’re currently a free subscriber, you’ll have until October to make the call on whether you want to upgrade and be there on Day 1 - you can also upgrade later and read all the archives :)

(4) If you have friends who want to go hard with you on FGGM, consider a group subscription:

UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENT:

Join me and Hannah Moushabeck on IG Live on 9/28/23 @ 9am PT/12pm ET during Weight Stigma Awareness Week for an important conversation about fat representation in books: