Given an
$n\times n$
symmetric matrix
$W\in [0,1]^{[n]\times [n]}$
, let
${\mathcal G}(n,W)$
be the random graph obtained by independently including each edge
$jk\in \binom{[n]}{2}$
with probability
$W_{jk}=W_{kj}$
. Given a degree sequence
$\textbf{d}=(d_1,\ldots, d_n)$
, let
${\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d})$
denote a uniformly random graph with degree sequence
$\textbf{d}$
. We couple
${\mathcal G}(n,W)$
and
${\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d})$
together so that asymptotically almost surely
${\mathcal G}(n,W)$
is a subgraph of
${\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d})$
, where
$W$
is some function of
$\textbf{d}$
. Let
$\Delta (\textbf{d})$
denote the maximum degree in
$\textbf{d}$
. Our coupling result is optimal when
$\Delta (\textbf{d})^2\ll \|\textbf{d}\|_1$
, that is,
$W_{ij}$
is asymptotic to
${\mathbb P}(ij\in{\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d}))$
for every
$i,j\in [n]$
. We also have coupling results for
$\textbf{d}$
that are not constrained by the condition
$\Delta (\textbf{d})^2\ll \|\textbf{d}\|_1$
. For such
$\textbf{d}$
our coupling result is still close to optimal, in the sense that
$W_{ij}$
is asymptotic to
${\mathbb P}(ij\in{\mathcal G}(n,\textbf{d}))$
for most pairs
$ij\in \binom{[n]}{2}$
.