A Bride Told Her Pregnant Bridesmaid to Stop 'Showing Off' Her Belly in Photos
A viral Reddit “Am I the A**shole” thread strikes again with a tale of a bride who felt wronged by one of her bridesmaids.
This time, the bride in question had complaints about a bridesmaid she calls “Kate” who was around seven months pregnant during the festivities. “Kate’s belly was easily accommodated into the dress style because it had quite a flowy skirt with a fitted bust,” she wrote in the thread as spotted by Insider. So all seems well, at first glance. But then came time for the post-ceremony, pre-reception photos.
“In one of the first photos I noticed Kate was deliberately holding her belly so it was really obvious in the fabric of her dress (think basically every maternity shoot photo ever taken),” the bride explained. “I asked her to stop holding her hands to show off her belly and to just pose like everyone else. I had to remind her a few more times before we’d finished taking the wedding party photos.” Upon her return from her honeymoon, the bride began to worry that Kate was upset with her. “Today another of my bridesmaids confirmed that Kate is pissed at me because I was ‘trying to make her look fat, not pregnant’ during the photos,” she added. “Now I’m annoyed because I paid a lot of money for a wedding photo shoot, not maternity pics.”
Somewhat surprisingly (considering pregnant women cannot control the size or shape of their stomachs), responders were split on the issue. “There is absolutely no reason someone should be deliberately showing off their ‘baby bump’ to take away from the bride in a photo,” one commenter replied. “If she didn’t feel comfortable in the dress, she could have opted out of being in the wedding. But making the photo shoot about herself and demonstrating her pregnant belly is not acceptable in a wedding photo. When you look back at the photos, you want to remember the happy times between you guys, not be distracted by her ‘on display’ baby bump.”
Nothing suggests she was “trying to take over [the] wedding photos,” wrote another. “From what OP [original poster] says, the friend wasn’t doing anything besides holding her belly, which is actually a normal standing position for pregnant people, not something reserved for maternity photography. Is it attention seeking to be visibly pregnant at someone else’s wedding? Because it seems like the bride (and a lot of commenters) are treating this girl like she maliciously planned to take over the wedding by not hiding her pregnancy, which is insane to me.”
Others (rightly) noted that the bridesmaid may have been self-conscious or physically uncomfortable in the moment—not actually a terrible friend trying to sabotage the photos or make herself the star.
“Posing like that is not trying to make it into a maternity shoot, unless she pulled the camera person aside and asked to take pictures of herself with her bump. She was just trying to feel halfway decent about herself in the pictures. It sucks being pregnant,” wrote another commenter. “I agree that if you needed everyone to do the same pose, she should have followed suit, but don’t assume that she was trying to make it all about her. She was probably just trying to make it through the photoshoot without crying.”
Our best guess is the photos turned out just fine, regardless of the drama.