Would you get married while pregnant?

Two former brides share their thoughts on tying the knot before or after the arrival of a newborn 

No! Says office manager Sophie Heal 

 I always thought i would get married before starting a family, but when i discovered i was pregnant, i never even considered marrying before the baby was born.With your hormones in a whirl, and all sorts of changes happening to your body, pregnancy at the very least can make you feel a bit under the weather and not feeling myself on the day of my wedding wasn’t very appealing.There’s so much meeting and greeting, eating, drinking and dancing involved in a wedding day, all of which i wanted to be able to enjoy with my husband, friends and family.There’s also a lot ofeffort that goes into the planning, and i really wanted to focus on being pregnant and preparing for the baby without having to rush through the process of planning my big day. 

I did want to get married as soon as possible afterwards though,  as the idea of being unmarried with children wasn’t ideal to me. So after my daughter Bella was born, as well as adjusting to motherhood, i began planning our wedding. However, i was still very much in ‘new mum’ mode, so became fairly laidback about the event itself because it wasn’t my absolute priority. i guess, in hindsight, i was slightly restricted having a newborn while planning and there were times when things became a bit chaotic, but it actually made making decisions really easy, because i just wanted things to be straightforward. i chose my dress very quickly, and there was no pondering over anything. Our daughter was eight months old when we got married, and i remember feeding her in the morning while my hair was in curlers. it was lovely to have her there as a part of our big day, but because the reception was at my parents’ house we were lucky enough to enjoy the best of both worlds. After i put her to bed, we had a few glasses of champagne and a dance with our guests. it was a little different to how i’d imagined my wedding when i was younger, but my husband and i have absolutely no regrets doing it the way that we did. 

Yes! Says business director Nia Marshall

i’ve always been quite traditional, so when i did fall pregnant, getting married straight away was simply the right step for me.This was confirmed after the laborious filling out of numerous forms,

where the baby was repeatedly referred to as Baby Marshall (my husband’s surname), and i couldn’t help but envision the scene of being in labour with our bed name reading ‘Baby Marshall’, which made me feel distant from my fiancé and baby. So, for me, sharing the same name was the main driving force behind tying the knot beforehand. I had been married before, to my uni boyfriend who swept me off to Paris for a romantic proposal, followed by a traditional big white wedding, and eight months later we separated, so this time around i was keen to just go with the flow and do what felt right, without the lavish do. i wasn’t fussed by not having a drink on my wedding day, it was an intimate affair, and there wasn’t pressure about missing out on a party.The event was more about the marriage itself and what it meant to us; a celebration of our love, sharing the same name and becoming a family. it was good fun planning the wedding while pregnant.We already knew we were having a girl and had named her, too, so there was a definite feeling that Sophie was with us during the run-up, and on the day, which made it all the more special. i will be the first to admit that it wasn’t all a breeze.While i wanted to look the part, unlike before, i didn’t feel the need to wear a white gown.This left me with the occasion wear departments, and finding an evening dress suitable to wear over my baby bump, while equally suitable to pass as wedding attire, proved to be difficult. However, thanks to an amazing seamstress, my dress was exactly how i imagined, and i didn’t feel uncomfortable at all on the day. Once you get over that hurdle, there really is nothing better than knowing that your child is there with you throughout. And now, when we flick through our wedding album, we can show Sophie that she was a part of our special day – even if she was a bump!