Two sisters are on a mission to help plus-size women find the wedding dress of their dreams.
Yukia and Yuneisia Harris opened Curvaceous Couture, a bridal salon in Columbia, Maryland, to provide women with designer gowns sizes 12 to 32 - and their experience is being documented on Curvy Brides, a new TLC special that will air August 1.
The program will show voluptuous brides-to-be trying on a fuchsia wedding gown, a mermaid-inspired dress and other unexpected styles.
The siblings started the business in their father's basement in 2009, after Yukia, 36, struggled to find a gown to fit her curvy frame before her own wedding.
'I had the worst time shopping for my wedding gown. When I got married, they didn't have shops like this,' Yukia says in a preview for the show, adding that her store offers hundreds of gowns.
'I ended up having to buy a dress of the rack that I absolutely hated. I was spilling over the entire wedding. That's why the minister's hands were shaking - my boobs were sitting there right in his face,' she added.
In 2011, Yukia told Business Week that as a size 20, she was unable to find an upscale dress with a $3,000 budget four years before. The frustrating ordeal led her to start Curvaceous Couture, where dresses range from $1,000 to $25,000.
'I was ready to fly to several locations. I ended up with this gown that I couldn’t stand,' she said.
'My sister ended up having to try my wedding gowns on for me. It was very humiliating,' she wrote in a first-person essay for the Washington Post that same year, adding that she hated looking at her wedding pictures.
TLC previously featured curvy brides on Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss, a spinoff of Say Yes to the Dress that focused on plus-size clients.
The network also announced that another upcoming wedding special, Bride by Design, will premiere July 25. The show will follow an Alabama-based designer who creates custom gowns based on personality-driven themes.
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