A reader, Kristen, emailed me to say that she recently got engaged (at an unexpectedly young age of 23) and then shortly after found out she was (unexpectedly) expecting. Her question is this: What’s the best solution: A pregnant bride or a new mommy bride?
And I am the wrong person to be giving advice about this.
My now-husband and I were never really “wedding-y” type people. We always said we’d rather elope and blow more money on a killer honeymoon than endure the stress of wedding planning (plus the people pleasing, party hosting, all-eyes-on-you bonanza). In fact, we always assumed we’d get married whenever we decided to have kids, just to have the same last name and important legal rights. Unromantic? Sure. But for us, we pledged our lives long before we signed a paper. For us, the “wedding” was just a legal formality to continue with what was really important to us: a marriage. When I was 8 months pregnant, I said my vows in a brown dress and then had a pretty normal day, besides making phone calls to my friends and family saying we just got hitched. We had some angry responses — some mutterings of us being selfish — but at the end of the day, that was our choice. And seeing how we still haven’t found the time for a honeymoon after our baby was born, I’m glad we didn’t wait.
I totally understand that most couples long for a dream wedding, but what do you think is the easiest/best way to handle being pregnant and engaged? Speed up the wedding and be a pregnant bride or wait until after the baby’s born?
Here are some things for Kristen to think about:
- One of our readers, Caitlin, decided to get married after her baby was born. Here’s what she had to say: “We debated having a wedding before Hayden arrived, but we ended up deciding that we deserved at least one major event in our lives to be planned — and planned well. We got married in September 2009, when Hayden was one and a half years old. It was the most perfect day, and well worth the wait. We like the idea that Hayden got to be a part of it.” Read Caitlin’s story here.
- On the other hand, Chaunie got married at 5 months pregnant, saying, “my pregnant belly emerging out of the bathroom before I did in my wedding night lingerie.” And even though her bridal gown ripped at the last minute, she didn’t have to pump on her honeymoon or achingly miss a baby back home.
- If you’re thinking about being a pregnant bride, these are some of the most gorgeous maternity wedding dresses I’ve seen.
What’s your advice for Kristen?
I think it totally depends on what it means to her. I think like you, a wedding is not something that should cost a boat load of money, where you have to worry about everyone. But if it is that important to her, why not do both, a carefully planned courthouse wedding, so that they can do the big one on their one year anniversary?
I agree. A girl I knew in college found out she was pregnant in the fall of her junior year. She and her boyfriend got married at the JP and the following year they had a formal church wedding that their daughter was able to be a part of. A honeymoon was out of the question from the start since they were both still in college so this worked best for them.
First off, congratulations on your engagement and your pregnancy! I went through a similar situation- my soon-to-be husband and I found out we were expecting when I was 22. We had talked about marriage in the future before that with no real specific plans. We ended up not getting married while pregnant. I like what Caitlin said in the original post. We did sort of try to get pregnant, but were kind of naive about it and didn’t have a lot of things prepared or in place. Getting to really plan our wedding after Max was born meant all of the time I needed before his arrival to focus on my pregnancy and the rest of our alone time together as a couple. We didn’t want the stress of wedding planning on top of it, but we knew we wanted to do something special for our actual wedding. Max is 14 months old now and we are getting married in November. We started planning in January. I’m looking forward to a big exciting day! Our son will be toddling around then so he will be our ring bearer!
That being said, I also really like other things said in the original post. Having a private elopement is such a classic, romantic idea. I think having that kind of wedding would be so personal. You wouldn’t have to worry about pressure from families to do things you didn’t want to do and from steering your day towards something you didn’t want (something we have run into quite a bit with the planning). And being able to save money for an awesome pre-baby honeymoon or other trip would be amazing, too! I think they are both great options! It sounds like talking it over with your partner and doing exactly what seems most fun and right for the two of you is what’s best! Good luck and enjoy!
Yay Congratulation on everything Kristen!! We were in the same boat. At 5 months pregnant (I was 24) we moved from LA back to Washington so we could be near our families and my (now husband) had just found out he was in the running for a full ride military scholarship to finish school. The only catch in the eyes of the program was that he was going to have a baby out of wedlock. Silly Army and their weird “moral” code. Anyway we went back and forth for months about if we were going to do it or not and finally everything fell into to place, my siblings and grandmother were going to be visiting the same weekend as his grandparents and Aunt//Uncle so we said what the hell. We ended up having just a tiny wedding on his Parents back deck overlooking the lake last May. My Dad conducted the ceremony and outside of feeling like a blimp everything was perfect.
We waited 4 months and then had a big party with all of our friends that acted as our reception and by then I was able to slim back down and fit into a cute short wedding dress. The other part that was exciting for me was it was my first post pregnancy drinking experience, I pumped before hand and had the help of the grandpeople watching Chloe. The party was also a fun way for everyone to get to meet Chloe and baby party dresses are out of control cute.
I think the one thing to be aware of is that if you’ve been dreaming about your fantasy wedding since you were little you should probably wait. I know at my dress fitting I cried because it was not at all how I had pictured the day going in my mind and while I loved everything about my wedding there are times when I still really wish we would have just waited a year like we had originally planned.
In the end no matter what you decide it will be right for you. Just make sure the decision is yours and your future husbands and try not to stress too much about it!
We chose to have our wedding after our son was born for insurance purposes. This was 4 years ago. My then-fiance and I were both college students when I got pregnant and were on our parents’ health insurance policies. We wanted to get married right away, but that would mean losing our insurance at a time when we could not afford to do so. We looked into buying health insurance, but my pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition, so we were denied. We were legally married at the county clerk’s office 2 weeks before the baby was born–We found out I would be covered on my parent’s insurance through the end of the month in which I married–and had the big wedding a few months later. Now, whenever we drive past the golf course where we had our wedding our son says, “That’s where Mommy and Daddy got married. I was there!” How cool is that?
I often wonder how many marriages are affected by heath insurance in this country — whether they chose to wait because of insurance (like you) or are encouraged to get married for health insurance. The latter was true in my case, since I had fantastic health insurance and my then-fiance was uninsured. We figured if we were going to get married eventually, why not both be able to have health insurance sooner? It’s ridiculous, but it did play into our marriage decision.
The same thing happened to my husband and me. I had insurance and he did not. We got engaged in January, found out we were pregnant in March, I had a miscarriage soon after, he lost his mind because he was so upset about the miscarriage and we decided to move up the wedding. We had a small ceremony at the court house, and on our one year anniversary had a big church wedding. Funny because I have no regrets marrying my husband, but regrets from each ceremony. The first was too small and we had our first meal married at Chili’s. The church wedding was too big and we spend too much money. We could have gone someplace really nice. We took vacations shortly before or after each one, but we could have had one really nice honeymoon!
I wanted to offer more thoughts on the civil versus religious and family ceremony.
The state and many of our social service providers offer a lot of protections for married couples, and for children of married couples. Whether you call it discrimination or official discouragement of out-of-wedlock births, I think that a quick ceremony at the courthouse can be a big help for you both, and for the little one on the way. In some ways, I think you and your child and your fiance have already committed to each other for life, so thinking about the practical side of things now is good.
My husband’s and my situation was complicated by visa issues instead of a birth, but I’m grateful we didn’t wait for the big church wedding, just talked about marriage and went down to the courhouse three months later when he was able to visit. My husband cried at the end of the ceremony. Some with happiness, and some with missing his family, who couldn’t travel so far on such short notice. We’re both very glad we didn’t wait, and that my parents and two sisters could join us. But, we’re also happy with the church blessing and big family party we had a year and a half later. Now we’re expecting our first, and health insurance, passports, life insurance, etc. are all so much easier because we’re married.
Everyone deserves a big celebration of thier marriage, but a civil service is really important too. I happen to come from a religious background that doesn’t support priests acting as agents of the state, so always knew I would need both a church blessing and a civil marriage ceremony, so that might have made our decision easier as well.
Either way, congratulations, and how lucky you are so have some many wonderful things to look forward to!
My husband and I got married when our son was 14 months old, we knew we wanted to get married, but we didn’t see what the rush was to do it before hand. It worked out nicely for us, and he was our ring bearer [=o)