OS ANGELESPosted on 03/12/2005 2:53:11 PM PST by NYC GOP Chick
OS ANGELES
FOR her wedding last year before 100 guests at the historic Mission Inn in Riverside, Calif., Neomi Padilla, 32, wore a sexy spaghetti-strap dress from L'ezu Atelier in Newport Beach and four-inch heels.
Then she held on for dear life.
At the altar, she was unable to kneel comfortably. "My husband held me because I thought I'd fall," she said. Making her way down a staircase to the reception things got more precarious. Being seven months pregnant, she couldn't see her feet.
Only a few years ago, women planning simultaneously for a wedding and a due date would beg designers and bridal stores for dresses that would camouflage their growing bellies and - if they told anyone at all - would insist on silence. These days, however, brides are not only not hiding their pregnancies, but they are showing them off, celebrating the upcoming birth in vows and toasts, wearing gowns that flatter their bump, and, in short, refusing to give up any elements of a traditional wedding just because there is a baby visibly on the way.
Some bridal gown manufacturers are rushing out maternity designs and officiants are blessing more and more unborn children.
"It is a growing trend," said the Rev. Christopher Tuttle, a nondenominational minister who presides over the National Association of Wedding Officiants - with about 200 members. "It's all become, 'Hey, look at me. I'm pregnant!' "
The Rev. Scott Carpenter, a Unity pastor who presides over another national group of officiants, the National Association of Wedding Ministers, said that eight years ago he never had a bride openly announce her pregnancy, but now those brides account for about 20 percent of the weddings he performs.
At a time when pregnancies are obsessively chronicled and celebrated in celebrity and fashion magazines, it is perhaps not surprising that they are being showcased even as women walk down the aisle. But there are larger cultural factors at work as well: women are getting married older, and many are living with their husbands-to-be for years before exchanging vows.
"They're older, they're more confident," said Carley Roney, editor in chief of The Knot (www.theknot.com), a Web site devoted to wedding planning information. "Oftentimes couples are paying for the wedding, so they don't worry about what people think."
Mrs. Padilla, who runs a family food business in the Los Angeles area and is now the mother of 8-month-old Sophia, said her attitude was, "Why can't I have it all?' " She said she became pregnant after plans for a big wedding were under way, and she decided to stick to them.
"I'm 32, my husband is 34," she said. "We wanted a family, so we weren't embarrassed."
The timing of baby and wedding is not always coincidental. Even though increasing numbers of heterosexual couples live together without marrying, Americans still lean toward marriage once a baby comes because people think it will provide greater security for the child.
But if pregnancies have often led to marriage, they have not always paved the way for full-blown weddings if the bride was far along.
With today's pregnant brides, Ms. Roney said, "It's the flaunting of it where things are taking a turn. We're talking about seven months pregnant."
Or eight. Laura Taylor, 21, of Terre Haute, Ind., said her only concern about her Feb. 12 wedding was that she was cutting it so close to her March due date that she feared she might have the baby before the husband.
Ms. Taylor, who until recently worked as a cashier in a tanning salon, said she had been engaged for more than three years and, upon learning she was pregnant, debated for a week and a half whether to have a big wedding. She decided on "this huge blowout," including a Baptist church ceremony and a reception for 125 guests.
"I just decided, what the heck," she said. "I do things out of order anyway." "I thought about an ivory dress and my mom was, no, you're getting white. It's 2005."
Those who shared the limelight with their unborn babies on their big day say the pregnancy made an emotional occasion even more intense. Jane E. Smith, 38, a director of training and development with InterContinental Hotels and Resorts in San Francisco, said even her guests cried at her wedding last November outside Palms Springs when the minister mentioned her yet-to-be-born son, Miller Michael (who was born Feb. 12).
"It was so unique and so special," said one teary-eyed guest, Jeff Rogers, 38, an information specialist with Nike in Portland, Ore. "I just sort of went, 'Oh, my gosh, there's so much more going on here than just two people getting married.' "
But being pregnant for your wedding is not necessarily the easiest way to go, what with swollen feet, queasy stomachs and multiple dress fittings. Some brides wear fabulous gowns with white sneakers or slippers because they would be too unsteady on heels. Many avoid evening weddings so they do not tire out.
The brides toast with apple juice and switch or postpone honeymoons because they cannot scuba dive or sit on a beach drinking piña coladas. They also don't want to be too far away from their doctors.
Trying to finding the dress, of course, can be a nightmare.
"The most stressful thing I've ever gone through," Ms. Taylor said.
She first went to the store where she had gotten her prom dresses and, she said: "They told me there was no way they could put me in a dress. I felt they didn't want to help me."
At a second shop, "the dresses looked terrible; they were five sizes bigger than what I wear."
Ms. Taylor said she finally found a satin dress with lace overlay that she loved from TeKay Designs (www.tk-designs.com), an online clothing retailer based in Houston that specializes in maternity wedding dresses in the $150 to $800 range.
The company started out in 1998 selling wedding, bridesmaid and prom dresses, but in recent years maternity wedding gowns have sold so briskly that they have become TeKay Designs' specialty, accounting for 60 percent of all sales, or about 300 dresses a year, said Joseph Okyere, director of operations. He said the demand is largely because of the company's wide maternity bridal selection - more than 100 designs - and its relatively low prices.
"In 2000, we started getting calls from pregnant women saying, 'I saw this dress on your Web site, can you custom make it to fit a pregnant woman?' " he said, adding that now the company has "orders coming from all over the world."
Ronald Rothstein, principal owner of Kleinfeld Bridal, the large bridal salon in Brooklyn that sells up to 8,000 wedding dresses a year in the $2,000 to $4,000 range, estimates that 6 to 7 brides out of every 100 who come to his salon are pregnant and will show when they marry.
"It used to be that the bride would call us in advance and say they wanted to talk to us privately," he said. "Nowadays, the bride comes in and says, 'I'm pregnant. What am I going to look good in?' It's just an extra level of excitement."
While pregnant brides say they have found overwhelming support from bridegrooms, parents, friends, officiants and wedding industry vendors, some said social acceptance is not universal.
Joy Lynn Leech, 31, who was seven months pregnant at her wedding last August, said most people were "extremely supportive" but among her 200 guests she noticed some people conspicuously "quiet about the whole thing."
And when she called her Roman Catholic Church she was told that one priest would not marry her but another "would most likely not have a problem."
Mrs. Leech, a volunteer firefighter who owns a pony ride business in New Jersey, got her church wedding - along with a beaded, double-silk organza gown by Jane Wilson-Marquis, a New York designer; horse-drawn carriages; and a big party at Nanina's in the Park in Belleville, N.J. - but she said she was "slightly disappointed" that the baby was not mentioned in the ceremony. She said she did not push it for fear that the accommodating priest would balk at marrying her altogether "because Catholics are so strict."
Christian conservative groups that promote abstinence before marriage, like the Family Research Council and the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, said that they found it positive that these pregnant brides were getting married, yet they objected to the message they may be sending.
"On one level it is sending the message that sexual activity before marriage doesn't have the kind of harmful emotional, social and economic consequences that can happen," said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a Presbyterian minister who heads the Christian Defense Coalition.
Carmela Pampillonia, a restaurant manager in Staten Island who was five months pregnant at her wedding Feb. 13, found her Catholic parish "very accepting" but waited three months for her priest to submit her request for review by his archdiocese. "I couldn't plan anything until they accepted me," she said.
But for brides like Ms. Pampillonia, however, etiquette was not on top of the priority list. "Marriage is supposed to be a symbol of love and unity, and a child brings you more love and unity," she explained. "I showed that belly off all night long and I felt great."
:)
-good Thames, G.J.P. (Jr.)
I just thought it was interesting!
Heh, me either. Of course, I was married in the mid-70's when the 'simple wedding' was all the rage. My dress cost exactly $36, and I sewed it myself. A week before the wedding, I was doing the final 'hand work', sewing the hem on the lace capelet at my desk during down times at work. My boss walked in and was stuned that I was making it myself!
Our flowers were simple, and they only cost $72, half of which was my wedding bouquet! My Granny said I was going to have a 'hippie wedding' because I was wearing flowers in my long hair rather than a veil, and we were going to have a folk Mass! LOL!
My 3 attendants wore the same design dress as I, but in a mango color with the capelet in white eyelet and a flower pattern on it in mango, purple and green! They were really cute! The men wore suits, NOT tuxes, and the reception was a punch and cake affair in the Church Hall. My cake didn't cost me anything because my older sister made it for me as a wedding gift, and it was beautiful and vey tasty. The real party was at Mama's afterwards with the food brought by my Aunts; ham, fried chicken, potato salad, beer and drinks!
Including the Rehearsal dinner, I doubt our wedding cost more than $500, and it was very lovely and memorable.
Having reprsented a few people in divorces, I have come to the conclusion that it is better to get married as young as reasonable. Just after college. It seems do career without a marriage to encumber the carreer is a recipie for divorce. Of course this is from the perspective of after things have already fallen appart.
I posted a similar thought earlier, but you brought the point home more clearly. Thank you.
Great if it works out that way... it took me longer, not by design really, to find someone to marry :~D
"Well gee... what's the alternative? To abort the baby? To raise the kid alone as a woman and the man pay child support?"
You missed my point entirely. I mentioned nothing about aborting the baby and raising the kid alone; I'm glad these people are getting married. But the examples cited in the story made it sound as if these people intentionally conceived outside of marriage and would get married when they felt like it. They also seem to assume that everyone should accept this arrangement, and the big church wedding that would follow. Capriole (post #71) said it best.
Maybe I think better of people than most.
Carmela Pampillonia says she found her Catholic parish "very accepting" of her wedding at five months along.
Is SCANDAL no longer a word in the Catholic lexicon?
Thank you, FP -- and the agreed upon fee should be in your PayPal account by now!
Good idea. You could renew your vows in a church service, too!
Yeah, but I'd get all fahklempt doing that! The year we celebrated our 25th anniversary, the Diocese had a special Mass for those celebrating those 'special' years, 10, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50 , there was even a couple celebrating their 75th Anniversary!! It was awesome, but when we stood to re-affirm our vows, even with all those other couples doing it at the same time, I still got misty and choked up! ;o)
A church is a building with which we worship God, not a backdrop for a photo event.
Happy no rejoice over these women getting to the church on time. Shame on you who are so perfect.
Their behavior implies a lack of remorse and a lack of shame on their part. In other words, they are refusing their "medicine". I am ashamed of my sins. These women are obviously proud of theirs.
The appropriate alternative is to be married discretely by a priest or deacon, then have a big, joyful renewal of their vows and reception in a year with all the bells and whistles.
That would demonstrate a respect for God's laws, as opposed to behaving in a way which announces tot he world "I got knocked up and I'm proud of it!"
Good point. What does it say to our daughters when fornication is flaunted, and the community celebrates?
No, YOU don't "get it". The reason they don't "GET IT" is that that nobody loves them enough to tell them the truth, that they are embarrassing themselves with their low-class behavior.
Sure, let them mock the sacraments, let them give scandal to the young. Drop all the standards in the hope that someday it will dawn on them that they are behaving foolishly. There's only one thing wrong with that. If foolish behavior is normalized, they will never learn what decent behavior is.
And as another poster already said to you,once things become accepted/the norm, there isn't any "waking up" to do.It will only get far worse than it already is.
"That would have been some video if the baby had decided it wanted to see what all the noise was about."
Oh yeah!
I was pregnant when I got married, but not so obviously pregnant. I bought my dress for $100.00 in a "vintage" clothing store on Broadway. It was white, knee lenghth, beaded, it was really very nice and appropriate. I don't know what the dress was in it's first life, maybe some kind of cruise-wear cocktail dress. They had several that were very similar.
I sincerly think that that is the UGLIEST dress I have EVER SEEN, and I remember Vogue magazine in the 1960s.
I think, I think, I think I have to throw up now. WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?!?!?!?!
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