I grew up in a very leafy, very dull village on the outskirts of Guildford. I suppose, in retrospect, I had the kind of childhood we all feel wistful for. At 10 we roamed freely on bikes, climbed trees, took ponies up to Aldershot’s military ranges and learned to dive through hoops into our cousins’ swimming pool. The summers of ‘75 & ‘76 were scorching, baking the clay soil into a Death Valley landscape. There were hose pipe bans, the nights were stifling and, whilst I was allowed freedom during the day, bedtimes were still militarily obeyed.
The British rarity of nights that were too hot and bright to sleep meant hours of languid wakefulness and eternal reading. One white hot night the sound of a violent argument had me virtually suspended out of my bedroom window as I strained to follow the altercation. My next door neighbour, purple in the face and landing punches, was hurling abuse at his teenage son. I was discovered by my Mum and hurried back into bed but not before I learned that the teenage son had got his girlfriend ‘into trouble.’
It was the theoretical summer of Anarchy in the UK; the suburbs were stirring, but it was still the ’70s. The speed that the poor boy and his pregnant girlfriend were rushed down the aisle, her pale blue dress marking her out as a ‘non virgin’ was unbelievable, followed by a quick exit to Australia as not to bring shame on the family. Extraordinary behaviour and a cautionary tale about ‘going too far.’ Or rather, a pretty effective lesson in being bloody careful with your contraception. The blue dress was ghastly…
For those of you that think I am as old as the hills this will seem like ancient history but for me it has taken one generation to see a complete volte-face with regards to pregnancy and weddings.
Referring to my article for Love My Dress, pregnancy, before or during wedding planning, is another thing there is no need to apologise for. Nobody is judging. Mercifully no one is getting a back garden beating and being sent into exile. As much as I could romanticise the long hot summer of 76, scented with Ambre Solaire and sountracked by bad girl punk, the morals and attitudes were Victorian, misplaced and misogynistic.
However, and this is a purely practical consideration, pregnancy can play havoc with your wedding planning!
Our tips for Wedding dress shopping and pregnancy
In my experience there are a three different pregnancy scenarios;
- Unexpected pregnancy. I have often joked with clients there is nothing as good for fertility as handing over a sizeable, non-refundable deposit for an unforgiving wedding dress. Or, I expect, for a booking for a barn, palazzo or tipi
- Brides that are actively trying to get pregnant either naturally or with fertility treatment.
- Brides that are planning a wedding knowing that they are pregnant and plan to marry after giving birth.
Unexpected pregnancy.
We have all done it. Played fast and loose with our cycles. I am staggered how I have ever conceived. I have never known if I was ovulating but I am fairly certain, according to my unscientific grasp of the laws of ovulation and scant understanding of the rhythm method, you are not supposed to conceive on the first or last day of a cycle, however sloshed! But I have… My offbeat hippy mate reckons you can spontaneously ovulate if you are having a particularly good time. My personal conviction is that if you are quite broke and it would be really inconvenient to be pregnant, specifically if you are not ‘trying,’ then one’s fertility increases exponentially.
Reader, you have ordered a dress, you have laughed and dismissed the clause in the dress contract about pregnancy and here you are, weeks or months later, sitting on the loo seat watching the blue lines appear on the stick.
I want to make it clear I am shelving all emotions. I am not making light of conception. I am certainly not taking a moral view. I am not getting drawn into discussions about fertility. How you handle the news and distribute it to friends and family is up to you. I am simply explaining how to tackle the practical issue of a wedding dress order.
Firstly, tell me, or whoever your retail store is. Don’t wait for the 12 week news watershed.
If you have ordered a bespoke dress from a designer that cuts and makes each dress for a client individually I can put a ‘hold’ on the order. This means that although you may be committed to a dress from them you are not committed to the size, style or date that you originally agreed.
If, like a couple of brides that I am seeing currently, you bought a sample dress or your dress has already been delivered we can rearrange your fitting schedule to be very close to your wedding and discuss the possibilities for keeping the dress looking fabulous with some clever design tweaks. This can involve turning a corsetted dress from button back to lace up, creating new back panels for the dress or amending the style. The alteration costs will increase but it shouldn’t be necessary to get a second dress if you are under 16 weeks.
Without wishing to load more considerations on your wedding dress choice it is more than sensible to buy a dress from a boutique that has an excellent in house fitting service that can handle this without added drama.
Case Study
Jill first visited Miss Bush almost a year ago with an original wedding date of April 2016. With her sights set on Jenny Packham, a game changing Jesus Peiro dress was ordered.
A call to The Chapel in July with the exciting and surprising pregnancy news meant I was able to get a possible set of alternative options lined up. Jesus Peiro have very flexible European production which, along with labels like Suzanne Neville, Sassi Holford, Sharon Hoey and Yolan Cris, can be incredibly adaptable, fast and service led. Often, when I have asked brides what labels they have been trying on they dismiss the question with “Oh, I don’t care too much, I haven’t been paying attention…” It is vital to do so, you need to know the provenance of your gown anyway but crucially it plays a huge role in determining whether we can change an order in light of a pregnancy.
I have added some excerpts from our various email exchanges that supplemented phone calls and appointments.
The emails between Jill and Miss Bush share her joy and hopefully reassure her that all will be well, that there are no hideous financial penalties and we are simply adapting to a different set of measurements.
Jill: “spoke to Emma earlier about the fact that, due to a change of circumstances, we are having to bring the wedding date forward to October. I’m pregnant and so we discussed the possibility of choosing a different dress.
I’m going to leave coming back to have a look until after my 12 week scan…
Emma: “Try and put all thoughts of wedding dress shopping out of your head until we see you again! We have years of experience and all the best designers at your disposal so you will look incredible. Panic not, we will take the very best care of you and come up with something, cool, comfortable and super stylish.
Jill: “Thank you for your lovely email. It really helped to put my mind at rest! We now have the new date confirmed and it is Sunday October 11th…which will only give us about two months if I come in after that (this will be around the time of my 12 week scan”
It is, of course, easy to be this calm and measured when you know that your wedding dress designers have your back and that the decades of experience I don’t always realise I have can be brought into play. The emails between Jesus Peiro and I show a more matter of fact approach, no one is panicking.
Emma to Jesus Peiro “I have a pregnant bride whose wedding is 11th October and she was previously going to have one of your dresses for April next year so we already got a deposit.
She now wants to order Style 6029 she is an approximate 42 now. Can I measure her on the week commencing 7th September for delivery week commencing 14th September?”
Jesus Peiro “I have already checked the fabrics before answering you. we have fabric and lace.
Jesus Peiro “A) If you can change the delivery, you can take her measurements again next week, and delivery start October. B) You have to give us measurements already with ease. Please tell me what you prefer.I will stay at your disposal in order to find a good solution.”
In Jill’s case the change of wedding date added an extra dimension to the change of order. If you are only going to be a few weeks pregnant by the time of your wedding we can still take steps to have the dress you ordered made with added ease, have it arrive without it’s buttons. It is still vital to tell us, even if you are keeping it quiet from family who are emotionally invested in the pregnancy. We can be very discreet but it avoids the fitting room awkwardness when we know your boobs are getting bigger at each fitting but you are just not telling us why!
If you have ordered a dress designed by a behemoth of a wedding dress company with slick but mechanised production like Maggie Sottero, Sottero and Midgley, Jenny Packham or any number of giants of the trade (Pronovias would be another good example) you have fewer options.
Legally and technically if you have ordered a size 12 dress you are committed to having this made-to-order item. If the sizing was optimistic before conception, let alone in your second trimester, for example, some serious conversations need to be had!
Know firstly that we are on your side but this does not preclude frank discussions about money and the law. If, like me when pregnant, literally anything makes you cry, it may be better to send in a more pragmatic spokesperson.
I will still want to know timings; how many weeks are you now, how many will you be when you get married. Will the dress be able to be adapted, will it still work aesthetically, practically, emotionally?
I can also throw myself at the mercy of our suppliers and see if I can switch sizes, if they have stock holding or they might be able to reallocate the dress to another bride.
If you end up having to take delivery of a dress that is no longer going to fit then you need to look into your options of re-selling it. The fact is though you will have to pay for it initially.
Trying for a baby
For many reasons but usually due to age, fertility issues or simply massive broodiness I know some clients are actively trying to get pregnant.
If you are embarking on rounds of IVF then there are specific timeframes to work round. I have one bride to be who waited to see the whether IVF worked and had a contract on hold. The wedding was booked, the dress chosen but not given the green light until the outcome was known. Then, when IVF didn’t work, a decision was made to get married before another round.
I have another bride who is in a similar IVF situation but is pressing on regardless and I will only work with designers like Jesus Peiro or Suzanne Neville that I know, with notice of intent, can work miracles in a relatively short amount of time.
If we know you are simply throwing caution to the wind then we can just measure generously. Sometimes when we plan for brides to be bigger and delay measurements a grisly bout of Hyperemesis Gravidarum has kept them twig thin and vowing never to get knocked up again!
Pregnant Already
The third category is being pregnant and planning a wedding for a specific amount of time after giving birth.
Most usually I will see brides to be who are in the first 12 weeks and have a wedding planned for anything from 3 months to a year plus after giving birth. Oddly enough, this is most difficult group to converse with, particularly if the bride to be is a first time Mum.
My own experience of being a new Mum ranges from being a first time weeping, bleeding and lactating hot mess, second time severely depressed and third time massively happy and, equally, massively overweight! I am not given to moderation so that is hardly surprising. I see many brides to be that come in positively glowing with a 9 week old baby that seem to have elastic abs, a sunny disposition and are planning their wedding with great positivity. Not jealous at all…
The awkward thing about meeting with someone who is planning a wedding after giving birth, especially for the first time, is trying gently to suggest they haven’t really grasped that you can’t plan. Baby hasn’t read the script and you may well lose the plot.
I am often told by brides to be that they want to try on dresses before they ‘show’ so they can choose. Sisters, do not put this extra dimension of stress on yourself. Try on after giving birth – and a good amount of time afterwards. This is your new figure. It may be the same as your old figure but you will think & FEEL differently about your body. You may and ought to love it more for its magical life giving power. Or you may wonder if your perineum went the same place as your pelvic floor and whether that letter box section of your stomach from your navel to your bikini line is ever going to stop smiling at you. You may be wonder woman, and I do see them, who are as firm, tiny and smokin’ as they moment they conceived. It is probably written in the stars or in you ability to walk away from cake how you will look and feel but don’t try to guess at it.
In an ideal, organised, wedding-planning-handbook world you would leave plenty of time, perhaps a minimum of 6 to 9 months from birth to wedding date. For wedding dress world only, 9 months would be perfect. Spend 12 weeks getting adjusted to being a Mummy, see what your new priorities are; they may not be shelling out on a designer wedding dress.
I am realising as I am writing this that I am utterly distracted by my colleague Leyla’s overdue-ness, that my designer and web guru Leah with her handsome baby Felix will be proof reading and designing this article and that my Client Services manager and new-ish Mum Sarah with her two boys will be on my case if anything is not on the money in regards to sensitivity to the newly pregnant or the newly delivered.
Among my immediate friends are women with IVF babies, women with incompetent cervix’s, breastfeeding counsellors, pregnancy yoga experts, single mums, bereaved mums, more heartbreaking miscarriage stories than I care to think of, stories of terminations, older Mums, young Mums, childless women and common breeding stock like me.
There is no stork to save you from stretch marks and you may not be Abby Clancy-esque after you have given birth. You may indeed suddenly think the most important thing is being a family, not whether you bowl people over with your yummy-ness. Know that I understand this and then park it.
My job is to have you looking fabulous, celebrating you at whatever point you are on the reproductive cycle. Whether it is a touch of corsetry, a generous swathe of chiffon or big hair matched with an equally big bump, we can channel our Pucci-Poppy Delevigne 70s inspo, but we are 21st century mamas all the way.
Image credits, from top; Miss Bush bride Jill, by Lucy Davenport | 70s Fashion, What to Expect | Laura Caudery from Fetcham Park on her wedding day, CKP Weddings | Drew Barrymore, People Magazine | Lily Allen, Hello Magazine | Miss Bush bride Jill, by Lucy Davenport | Miss Bush bride Paula at approx 9 months post partum, by Carey Sheffield | Miss Bush digital marketing manager Leah at 12 weeks pregnant on her wedding day, Ali Lovegrove Photography
Emma Meek, MD of Miss Bush
Miss Bush is Surrey’s leading designer bridal shop
