My Lil White Dress

This happens a lot. Most people choose their wedding party a full year before the wedding. And well, a lot can happen in a year – including a pregnancy. If your maid of honor ends up being pregnant in your wedding, that’s OK. She can rest easier for one, no worries about being nice and thin for your big day!

It can be stressful, though. Finding maternity bridesmaid dresses that will match what the non-pregnant girls are wearing is difficult. I went through this myself once and ended up having a very hard time. We went to David’s bridal but the color the bride had chosen for the wedding party was not available in any of their maternity dresses. And the styles of the maternity bridesmaid dresses really didn’t match what the other girls were wearing at all. I quickly discovered that finding a dress would not be that easy.

Here’s what I learned. Get a color swatch from the bridal store of the material that the other girls will be wearing and take it with you to the mall. You and your maid of honor can shop maternity stores and regular stores for dresses in that color. Don’t ignore the regular dresses – stretchy fabrics will easily fit over the belly of a woman is seven months or less pregnant in most cases. If your maid of honor has been pregnant before, she will have an idea of how big she will be by your wedding date. If it’s her first pregnancy, that might not be as easy to guess. For me, I found an extremely stretchy dress that fit right over my enormous 7.5 month belly without a problem. I found it at JCPenney and it matched the color swatch of the other dresses so well that no one could believe that we got them from different stores. The moral of the story is don’t give up!

Of course the other issue with a pregnant maid of honor is how she will hold up in the ceremony. If she is very far along on your wedding day, you may need to consider having a chair ready in case she feels the need to sit down during the ceremony. And then there’s the issue of her being due the week of your wedding. It happens. You really need to have a back up plan and think some issues through. Is someone else willing to step up as maid of honor if yours goes into labor before the wedding? What will you do if she is in labor during your wedding (are you willing to miss that big event in her life)? What if she goes into labor during your ceremony right there in front of the church? Do you love her enough to not be bitter if she “steals” your spotlight?

There are options of course. Your wedding is still quite a ways off – you can always move your wedding up enough that your maid of honor will not be close to delivering. Or you can push it back far enough that you no for sure she will have given birth by that point. And then of course, you can ask her to step down as maid of honor. That’s all up to you and what kind of relationship the two of you have!